


My love is a life taker

by JoCarthage



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Manes Needs a Hug, Alex raised without friends, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Benghazi attack, COVID-aesthetics (mask and gloves), Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feral Stabby Baby, Found Family, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Iraq War, Jesse Manes is a War Crime, Lebanese Civil War, M/M, Maria DeLuca is a Good Friend, Mental Health Issues, Michael Guerin Needs a Hug, Minor Character Death, Minor Max Evans/Liz Ortecho, Minor Rosa Ortecho/Isobel Evans, Multi, Murder, Rwanda 1994, Self-Harm, Siege of Sarajevo, Slow Burn, Somalia 1993, Terrorism, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, assassin!Alex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:47:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 52
Words: 267,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: By the time he turned 15, Captain Alex Manes had been to every war zone and unofficial conflict the United States of America was involved in. It wasn't regular practice, or even heard of, for a Colonel to bring his son along on combat missions; the exception was if the child had been identified as Time Aware, able to travel in time along their own timeline using stolen alien technology.So here Alex Manes was, 28, and ducking bombs, killing who he’s told to. On his way back from a mission, Alex slips into another timestream. It should be impossible. But he can hear a child crying and he heads towards the sound.This is  the story of how Alex saved Michael and Michael saved Alex, with lots of time travel shenanigans and angst.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 1384
Kudos: 375





	1. Somebody's cold one is giving me chills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should say here that I:
> 
> 1) don’t do sad endings but I do engage in angst and the trigger warnings above are really serious. 
> 
> 2) This fic is pro-time travel. A lot of time travel stories, the moral is ‘and that’s why the way the world is is the best version of how it could be and we should never try to fix anything in the past.’ I think that’s crap. We don’t need trauma and hurt and oppression to make us awesome. The fact people and fictional characters survive other people is impressive and strong, but they would *still* be impressive and strong if they hadn’t been hurt. So, if you like the other kind of story that follows the “don’t change anything” prime directive, this isn’t going to be super satisfying. 
> 
> 3) the pandemic is eating my brain and motivation at random moments, so I’m not going to commit to a particular posting schedule that I can then use to beat myself up about. I’m hoping I’ll have this all up this week, but if wishes were horses I wouldn’t be under quarantine.
> 
> Grumping aside, huge thanks to all of the lovely folks of the Roswell 18+ Discord for their amazing encouragement on this piece!
> 
> All of the titles will be from Weezer's "Say it ain't so": https://genius.com/Weezer-say-it-aint-so-lyrics

Captain Alex Manes snapped his blue gloves over his hands and looked the Iraqi intelligence agent in the eye. The man struggled against his bindings and Alex winced internally; thumb zip-ties were a bitch and a half when they dug into your skin.

"Torture doesn't work." Captain Manes said conversationally, making sure his cuffs covered the ends of his gloves, forming a complete seal. "But as a Time Agent, it's my job not to spread germs from my time back to yours, so," he tapped his face-mask. "This is for your protection."

The man's eyes rolled in terror and Alex sighed. He sat down on the dusty Iraqi government office's floor. The basement of the Iraqi Department of Agriculture was as abandoned as the Ba'athists' mandate, but he'd emptied the room of everything but the wooden chair the man was tied to before he woke up.

"See," he said, leaning his head against the gently rocking chair as the man struggled against it, "in a few hours, you were planning to reveal the perimeter team's shift schedule to al-Sadr's people. 11 Marines would have died in the ambush you would have planned for May 15, 2009."

He tipped his head back, giving the man a bright smile; the man whined against his t-shirt gag and Alex rolled his eyes. "I know their faces. Do you?"

The man shook his head, whether pleading for mercy or disagreement, Alex didn't know. He didn't expect he'd have time to find out.

He pulled his mission briefing from behind his bulletproof vest, opening it up to show a face book of men in their official Marine enlistment portraits. He held it up for where the man could see.

"They'll be waiting for me, when I get back to my timeline. I dropped letters to their families, telling them what was happening and when/where to show-up. Oh, this might help," he flipped to the next page in his briefing. "Before you woke up, I hired a courier to send $30,000 in cash to your family. That's twice the usual condolence payment." He swiveled on his good knee, looking the man in the eye. "Your family will be taken care of. You don't have to worry about that."

The man's breathing was beginning to slow, but the panic in his eyes was only getting brighter.

Alex looked him up and down. "Between sending the condolence payment and notifying the Marine's families of their Time Agency averted deaths, I injected a lethal dose of morphine between your toes." The man cried out, struggling so hard the chair would have tipped if Alex hadn't braced his entire weight against it.

"Don't worry, the courier is going to come back and will be returning your body, fully in-tact, to your family before tomorrow sundown. I expect you'll have a good funeral and," he felt a flicker of his father's smile moving across his face, "Your death brings this war just a little bit closer to ending early."

The man was gasping against his gag and Alex eased the knot off the back of his head, tilting his head, curious to hear the man's last words.

"My family won't be targeted?" The man asked in British-accented English.

Alex shook his head firmly. "No. You're the one who planned to get nearly a dozen Marines killed. Heba, Moussa and Tarik did nothing wrong. I hope they live long, peaceful lives."

The man closed his eyes, breathing getting heavy. "We've never met. I don't understand how you're here. I don't -- Time Agents can only travel along their own timelines."

Alex smirked, more teeth than tender: "Well, most Time Agents didn't have the childhoods I had. I saw something like 1.6 million people before I turned 18, thanks to my Dad's Grand Tour, so it's easier to find moments my timeline intersects with any given person's." He felt a childish grin rise; the man gargled. "My Bacon number is 1 with most leaders of the insurgency."

The man bit his lips, trying to breathe; _only about a minute left._ "That sounds like a shit way to live."

Alex felt his face become stone, his arms heavy. He felt his stump, the aches in his back from carrying this man from his truck, the anticipatory ache of getting pulled back through his timestream. His voice was cold as amber when he said: "It's a good way not to die."

The man blinked up at him, once, slowly, voice choking: "You'll stay?"

Alex’s voice was soft: "If you want."

He nodded, head lolling.

Alex folded to his knees in front of him, whole leg taking the weight: "I've got time."

\--

Captain Manes only had a few minutes left on his 24 hour mission clock once the man finished passing. Once the alien-tech-infused timer on his wrist ran out, he’d get sucked back up the time zipline and into his own time. 

Alex undid his target’s bonds, laying him out in the middle of the floor, hands cross on his chest. He bleached the chair, stuffed the folder back inside his vest, and went to go and sit in the twilit hallway. He took a deep breath, feeling his chest expand properly for the first time this mission.

The sunlight was always different here in Baghdad, more horizontal, more golden; cutting through a different kind of atmosphere than in Roswell where the Time Agency was based. " _Stealing alien technology to undo the sins of the past"_ was what their tagline would be, if they were public enough to need branding.

He’d found in the past decade that it hurt less to get yanked back through time if he relaxed before it happened. He took another deep breath. He knew when he arrived back at the steel-and-leaded-glass time chamber in Roswell, there would be a crowd of living Marines, their families, anyone who this intervention had saved. They would be standing around the glass sphere; grinning; probably clapping. The only people who would remember this alternate timeline were those who were touched by the alien tech; for everyone else, it would be a nice story to never tell anyone about under penalty of having their timelines fucked with.

Alex closed his eyes. He couldn’t hear anyone coming, on this floor or the one above it.

The call-to-prayer hovered across the city, warm and bright. He had never told his father, and he never would, but he loved that sound. All of those voices, discordant and melodic, shitty speakers and great ones, wavering and quavering out over the city.

There were a lot of things that were shit about spending nearly every day of his life before 18 out of the US: no lasting friendships, no unapproved hobbies, no sex with people he particularly liked. But growing-up hearing the call-to-prayer, knowing he was saving people’s lives, and getting the training he needed to end wars? That was worth something. _It had to be._

Alex began to feel the pressure in his chest where the alien time travel device had been implanted, right under his breastbone. He’d tried to explain it to his father once, what it felt like, like his heart was breaking new and shattering pieces under his sternum; but Colonel Manes wasn’t Time Aware and had never experienced it. He’d just sent Alex to go practice his languages and prep for a land navigation test the next day.

It got stronger, the light of the alien device implanted under his skin hovering and shining around him, and that sharp beeping countdown from his watch started, numbers flashing red on the LED screen. 

10: He couldn’t breathe. He focused on keeping his body relaxed.

9: His jaw was aching from clenching it. At least he didn’t have to wear a mouth-guard anymore.

8: His fingers were tingling and so were both sets of toes: the ones he had and the ones a bomb had taken on his third mission.

7: His vision was starting to blur. He took one last look at the warm Iraqi sunlight and closed his eyes again.

6: There was pressure, like a boot on his chest.

5: Something like a kick to his chest. He hunched inwards, knowing from video he’d seen of the time slip that the white-blue-purple-orange light was coiling, trailing around his black tact suit, enveloping him.

4: The rushing in his ears was more than his heart frantically pumping; it was the sound of the timestream. 

3: He jerked; that kick had been harder than he’d expected. He wrapped his arms around his chest. He wouldn’t look as kickass arriving in the fetal position, but he’d survive.

2: The feeling like a hand over his face, dragging him backwards.

1: Darkness. Darkness and silence. Then the blue-shaded whiplash of his timeline fast-forwarding around him, people, places, things he’d touched or missed, all flying past him, in straight reverse chronological order.

He opened his eyes. He could breathe.

He was in the wrong place.

There were no smiling Marines; no grinning mothers or daughters; no Colonel or Flint or Clay; no leaded-steel and glass sphere.

“Fuck you!” shouted a little boy, maybe a room away; the sound of a kick and a whimper. 

Alex looked around; he was in a hoarder's guestroom, dust and rat dropping covered half-labeled cardboard boxes, spiderwebs in their second or third generation. Dust hovered in the air. 

Alex looked at his watch; 1000 seconds. 999. 998.

 _What the fuck_ , he thought. He stood, using the grime-covered windowsill to lever himself up.

The soft sound of a boot hitting a small body.

 _Fuck this_ , he thought. He had no idea what was going on, but no way, no how was a kid getting kicked in front of him if he could stop it. He shoved his way through the boxes and tried the door. _Locked._

His gloved hand kept slipping off the handle, like it was greased. He made a disgusted cat face and tried again. Nothing.

A whimper through the paper thin wall.

“Fuck!” He cursed and shoved his shoulder against the door. Nothing.

He took a step back and looked at the door; the hinges were on the inside. He pulled his tac knife out of his belt and went to popping the bolts out of the hinges. It took more force than it should have, but when he _pushed_ he broke through. He counted kicks and cries as he went, making a tally to work his way through once he got past this _fucking_ door.

He looked at his watch: 897 seconds. He _hoped_ to fuck it was counting down to him getting back to Roswell, because he had no idea where or when he was. But that was a problem for 14 minutes from now. 

There was another sound, like a slap and a softer groan of pain.

Last bolt out and the door crashed inwards.

He expected the beating to stop, the father to come to see what was happening.

Instead, he heard: “I fucking _told you_ \--”

“It wasn’t me!” Came the cry and then a harsh sound of pain.

“Fuck this,” Alex growled, kicking down the door. 

The room froze: the man was wearing a stained blue t-shirt, thick salt-and-pepper beard and some kind of thin cotton boxers. He was bracing for another kick, but was staring at the open door, eyes sliding over where Alex stood. The kid couldn’t have been more than 8, curly hair full of dust, flat on his back. He looked Alex dead in the eyes, fucking terrified.

Alex realized he was still wearing his mask.

The man turned back to the kid, seemingly ignoring where Alex stood with his knife out. He reached down to grab for his thin red shirt; Alex thought he saw a Wolverine cartoon on it but he didn’t wait to be sure. He strode forward, roundhouse kicking the man in the chest. He must have been heavier than he looked, but the kick pushed him backwards. Alex shook his head -- the man should have been knocked into the unpainted wall with the force of his usual attacks -- but he dropped his foot, sheathed his knife, and caught the man’s scraggly chin with an uppercut, then a punch to the gut. Each punch landed lighter than he expected, but what he seemed to lack in force, he made-up for in persistence. 

A cold part of Alex’s mind thought the man’s reactions were bizarre. He wasn’t even _trying_ to block Alex’s strikes, even when he telegraphed them, trying to draw the man out. He just grunted and wailed, eyes searching the space around Alex madly.

He shoved the man to the wall, muscled forearm going under his thick chin: “Can you not see me?” Being blind didn’t stop someone from being abusive, but the man’s eyes looked fine to him. He didn’t know how else to tell.

The man said nothing, just kept struggling against his hold. Alex sighed, switching his grip to choke him from behind, sinking to the ground as he struggled, ducking his head behind the man’s shoulder to keep him from grabbing him. As the man’s struggles slowed and his hands stopped grasping, Alex looked over at the boy. He was propped up on his elbows, glaring at Alex.

“You’re a shitty ghost; you’re just gonna get me in more trouble when he wakes up.”

Alex shoved the man off of him, making sure his face was sideways so he wouldn’t aspirate on his own vomit. “I’m not a ghost.”

“Then how come Mr Ridley can’t see you or hear you?”

“He’s not blind or Deaf?”

The boy shook his head, slow and exaggerated, like Alex was the dumbest person alive.

Alex closed his eyes, crawling to sit in front of the kid, a careful distance away. “I’m not a ghost. I’m a Time Traveler.”

The kid rolled his eyes. His cheek was scraped and there was blood at his hairline. Alex knew how those felt.

“Want to get cleaned-up? It’s easier to take hits if you’ve healed from the last ones.”

The kid’s face worked. “I’m good.”

Alex frowned. “15 kicks. Just since I got here. You’ve probably got a cracked rib.”

The kid’s eyes widened: “No hospitals!”

Alex’s heart clenched. “Ok,” he said, “ok. I have a,” and he tried to think of how to explain the healing alien tech he traveled with to an 8-year-old. “What year is it?”

“1998?” The kid was starting to look afraid again. “Why don’t you know that?

“I’m a Time Traveler, I said that,” Alex muttered, “Ok, do you watch _Star Trek_?” And there, just for a second, the boy actually looked like an 8-year-old boy. Eyes lighting up, grinning with glee at a fellow geek. He shut it down, but there was something so warm in Alex’s chest at having seen it.

“Yeah? So what.”

Alex took a breath: “I have something, like a tricorder. Or bacta, if you like _Star Wars_. I can use it to heal your rib. So, no hospitals. You just won’t hurt.”

The kid’s face was a mask of suspicion: “What do you want for it?”

Alex tipped his head to the side: “Nothing. People don't always have an agenda. They can just be nice to each other for no reason sometimes.”

The kid’s face was shadowed. “Not in my experience.”

Alex slowly unholstered the medspray, setting it beside him. “If I show you how it works on me, will you let me try to help you?”

“Why?” The kid spat.

Alex refused, fucking _refused_ to snap back. He kept his voice low, friendly, even: “Because you don’t deserve to be hurt.”

The kid glanced to the broken man behind Alex and then to the side. 

“Here,” Alex said, pulling out his knife, keeping his weight back, body relaxed looking.

He tugged up the edge of his cuff, exposing the back of his forearm. He touched the edge of the knife to his skin, took a slow breath, and gave himself a thin paper cut.

The kid was staring, eyes wide and worried. Alex resheathed the knife, picked up the medspray, and waved it over his arm, pressing down on the button as he went. It glowed the same blue-purple-orange as the light from the timeline and it felt like a time kick. Like it was pulling his skin back to just before the injury. He’d heard stories of people tortured with this stuff, it being used to send different parts of their bodies to different ages on their timeline. He hated that shit. It did nothing but cause pain.

He showed the clean, uncut skin to the kid, hoping the gentle orange-purple glow didn’t freak-out the kid anymore than he already had.

The kid -- he was forcing himself to his hands and knees, wincing and gasping, but crawling closer. Alex held very still. He presented his forearm out for inspection and the boy’s face was lit from below with the fading golden glow. He held his little hands over the healed cut, like he was warming himself at a fire after a 10 mile forced march in the snow. 

His voice was tiny, wondering: “You’re like me -- you’re an alien too.” He held out a hand, closing his eyes and wiggled his fingers. A little set of dice flew from behind a baseboard into his palm before leaping into the air and doing minuets.

Alex felt cold, but didn’t move as he watched the dice dance. He knew the alien tech he used every day had come from Caulfield, from other prisons and exploitation centers. He looked around the room; this was nowhere near any of them. There were no _kids_ _,_ there couldn’t be _kids --_

“What’s your name?” he asked, and he was both comforted and horrified that his voice had the same neutral, friendly calm he’d been trying to project this whole time. “I’m Alex.”

The kid quirked a smile: “I bet that’s not your alien name. They’ve been calling me Michael. I’m Michael Ridley right now, but,” he looked at the man behind Alex, running his tongue over his split lip. “Probably not for long.”

“Sounds like a different name would be better,” Alex muttered. Then Alex shook his head: “I’m not an alien, Michael. I just have some alien technology.”

Michael looked up into Alex’s eyes, big and scared. “So -- so you’re not here to take me home?”

Alex’s heart clenched, and he wished it was because he was getting dragged back through time, away from all of these shitty choices. But no; it was just his meat-heart hurting. _I don’t even have a place I could take him, not where he’d be safe_. Alex thought of the room he shared with Flint on the base, two twins in a base out-building constructed in the 1970s.

Michael’s face was so, so hopeful. And Alex, just for a minute, wanted to take off his time devices, let them transport themselves back to his timeline when the clock ran out and just -- pick-up this kid. Get a job. Get out of this whole world.

He shook his head. That was an old fantasy and he had decades of practice squashing it.

“I can’t, Michael -- but you deserve to be someplace safe. Can you call your social worker for a pick-up before he wakes up?”

“Why can’t you -- you have alien tech, you must know aliens. Tell them where I am! Tell them to come get me!” The little kid was nearly crying, hands hovering in the fading light of Alex’s healing arm.

“I’ll -- I’ll try, kid. I’ll try,” he said and Michael looked at him hard, so fiercely in the face. “I will.” He said, hearing the desperation to be believed in his own voice.

“I don’t believe you,” Michael said, sitting back, pulling his knees in front of him with a pained grunt. “You don’t care.”

“You’ll have to wait and see, then,” Alex said, not knowing what else to say. Then he looked at his watch: 248 more seconds. “Ok,” he said, “I’m going to get pulled back to my time in four minutes. That’s enough time for me to heal you and make a report to social services, if you don’t want to make the call.”

Michael’s face was a stubborn mask, arms locked around each other, nearly vibrating with pain and anxiety and Alex -- he felt something crack inside. He put down the medspray. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He reached back behind his own head and unsnapped his face mask. He pulled it away from his face, letting it pool on the floor beside him. He carefully rolled forward onto his knees, so he was close enough to Michael to look him in his eyes without invading his space. He held his gloved hands out, palms towards Michael. 

“Or,” he said, voice soft. “I can give you a hug and I can trust you’ll call your social worker once I go.” The looks flaring across Michael’s face were heartbreaking -- need and hope and fear and pain. “What do you want to do?”

Michael sniffed, looking behind Alex at Mr Ridley. “I’d like not to hurt,” he worked his jaw. “You promise you’ll tell the aliens you know about me? In your time -- when are you from?”

“2018,” Alex replied, picking up the medspray. 

Michael took a big breath. “I’ll be 28 then,” he said, voice hurting. “But you’ll find me?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Ribs first or face?”

Michael shook his head: “Neither, he stomped on my ankle, I need that fixed to be able to walk out of here.”

“Okay,” Alex said. “Can you pull up your jeans just so I can see your ankle?”

Michael nodded. Alex sprayed it and the kid bit his lip at the strange sensation.

In a low tone, Alex said: “The glow will fade in about 15 minutes, so maybe call when that happens. Ribs next?”

The kid nodded, yanking the corner of his Wolverine shirt up. Alex could count every single one of his ribs, even under the low swelling. Alex sprayed him there too. He glanced at his watch -- 58 seconds.

He took a breath, unsnapping his wallet. “I’ve got some money from this time,” he said, flipping to his stack of 1995 $20s. “Keep it someplace it won’t be found.” He handed him $500 and Michael stuffed it inside his sock, tucking his pant-leg over it. “Only spend a little at a time; it should be enough to keep you fed over the summer when school lunches stop. If you close your eyes, I can take care of that cut on your forehead and your cheek.”

Michael did and Alex sprayed carefully across the line of the cut and then down the rugburn on his cheek.

“Open,” he said, sitting back. His watch read 27 seconds. He put his medspray away.

“Ok, I’m going to have to go. Promise me you’ll call the social worker?”

“Promise me you’ll tell your aliens.”

Alex bit his lip, knowing the little boy could see it, stomach clenching: “I’ll try.”

“Then I’ll try.”

“Okay, that’s the most I can ask,” Alex said, sitting back. “It’s -- don’t come too close, ok? I usually need people to stay like 6 feet back.” He tried to quirk a smile. “But I think you’ll recognize the lights.”

Michael scooted all the way back against the mattress on the floor, hitching his elbows back against it.

“If the light gets too bright, close your eyes, ok?” He said. 15 seconds.

“Not a chance.” Michael said, and Alex saw his bright eyes get even wider as the tendrils of blue-orange-purple light spread from Alex’s chest, wrapping all the way around him, and yanking him back.


	2. the son is drowning in the flood

Alex gasped in the cold air of the time chamber, the screaming alarms making it flash red and black in waves. He held up a hand, giving the OK symbol like he’d just come-up from a deep dive. 

The lights flicked back on, bright and sterile. Over the loudspeaker, he heard Flint’s voice:

“Captain Alex Manes!”

There was applause as Alex struggled to his feet, eyes swimming with the transition from the dark house to the bright lab lights. He teetered as he looked around, bracing a hand against the glass wall of the time sphere. The room was full -- he spotted Marines in their service dress, kids in their Sunday best, smiling mothers and grandmothers. He waved, forcing a smile across his face.

“Now, everyone, thank you so much for coming,” Flint’s voice came through, loud and clear. “Captain Manes needs to go through the decontamination procedure, so please join our command staff for our celebration of our 150th successful mission in the anteroom.”

Alex was already stripping off his kevlar, yanking his gloves off his hands. He hoped in the confusion no one would notice his mask was gone.

No dice. His father’s voice came loud and clear over the speaker as the last of the families were ushered into the other room without a glance back at him: “You were missing for 16 minutes and you’re not wearing your mask: what happened?” His voice was colder than the air around him. The lab techs and Flint were working on getting the decontamination gas ready to flood the chamber, tactfully not looking at him.

Alex unsnapped his belt, some tiny part of him wishing someone would give him the chance at privacy he’d tried to give Michael Ridley. He slid his pants and briefs down, kicking them into the go box to be cleaned later.

“I don’t know.”

He yanked his black henley over his head, following it with his undershirt, shoving them into the go box. He looked around; it looked like no one had remembered to put a stool in here for him to take his prosthetic off. He sighed internally, lowering himself to the freezing metal.

“That’s not good enough.”

He took a breath, wondering what would happen if he shouted _Fuck you!_ at the Colonel. He answered, knowing his voice sounded dull: “I completed the mission successfully, then I was somewhere else. I don’t know where. Then I was here.”

He took off his whole foot’s boot and sock, then began the process to remove his prosthetic. 

“You kept those Marines and their families waiting, Alex.” He cringed inside, body reacting to the threat that he was certain no one else would hear.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“See Dr Valenti after your decontamination to see if your blackout will have lasting impacts on your ability to serve.”

“Yes, sir.”

The milky-pale gas began to flood the chamber, killing anything he might have brought back with him. They didn’t need to reintroduce some version of the flu their younger lab techs had no immunity to. Once he was certain the gas hid his face, he looked down, letting himself wonder how he’d feel if someone had told that little kid he had to see the doctor so he could remain useful. _He probably would have bit them_ he thought, not letting the thought show on his face.

Once the gas cleared and the door to the time sphere opened, Flint handed him a pink jumpsuit and a pair of crutches. Alex rolled his eyes and Flint returned the sneer. Alex got dressed and headed through the concrete-floored, white-painted walls of the Time Agency to the med lab, looking forward to getting into his civvies, getting his leg back, and heading to his room in time to sleep before Flint came banging in.

Dr Kyle Valenti was as fit, movie star gorgeous, and difficult as he’d been when Alex had met him on one of his annual divorce court mandated weeks in Roswell with his Mom growing up. Their Moms had worked together on a range of community projects, mostly around women, immigrants, and indigenous people’s rights. On the rare occasions Alex had gotten to see his Mom, he’d gotten pulled into a colorful whirl of potluck fundraisers and community cookouts and protest sign-making parties and community patrol walks. Then he’d gone back to the fatigues and Yes Sirs of his everyday life with his father and his status as being a member of the 1% of Americans born every year who tested as being Time Aware.

Kyle had invited him out for friendly drinks a few times since they'd began working together, but Alex needed all the sleep he could get before Flint came in with his heavy metal music ‘he needed to sleep’ and generally shitty roommate behavior.

Dr Valenti waved Alex into the small examination room, eyes on his chart, gesturing for him to hop up onto the examination bed. 

“So, Captain Manes, looks like you lost some time?”

Alex narrowed his eyes: Kyle had been working here for 3 years and he had thought -- nay, _prayed_ \-- that Kyle had run out of time travel puns. _Apparently not_.

“Yes, Dr Valenti.”

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, thinking about if someone had given that kid a check-up ever, given his clear aversion to doctors.

“Do you remember anything about the time you were missing?”

Alex glanced at the recorder in Dr Valenti’s hands, then up into his eyes. “Not to speak of.”

Kyle frowned, glancing down at his recorder and then back at Alex.

“Ok,” he said, clicking it off. “And now?”

Alex shrugged, watching Kyle carefully. Kyle spoke slowly. “I was going to get some beers after work, you up for it?”

Alex held his eyes: “Sure.”

“Great,” he said, and deliberately snapped the recorder back on. “So, you were 16 minutes and 40 seconds late?”

“1000 seconds, yes.”

Kyle frowned. “That’s weirdly specific.”

“It was what my watch said.”

“I thought they only reset 10 seconds before you slid back up the time zipline?”

Alex nodded slowly. “Usually, yes.”

“Ever seen it do this before?”

“No, Dr Valenti.”

Kyle took a deep breath, looking at his chart. “I’ll schedule you for a neurological work-up tomorrow, then give a full report.”

“Works for me.”

Kyle glanced over at him. “So, since you’re my only patient today, and if I remember right you don’t have a truck, I’ll meet you at mine once you get changed, say, 6:15pm?”

Alex checked his watch; in addition to giving him a heads-up of when he’d be pulled back through his own timeline, it also told time.

“Sure.”

\--

Kyle picked a dive bar called the Wild Pony, with arcing nets of fairy lights strung across the ceiling, Wheezer on the jukebox, and a deep bar. Alex was glad he’d worn a thick t-shirt so the alien device in his chest’s low glow wasn’t remotely visible.

“You’ve seriously never been here?”

Alex’s eyes were on the exits, the bodies of the other patrons. It was early enough on a Friday night that there weren’t a lot of folks here yet, but there were more cowboy hats than fatigues. He shook his head belatedly to the question.

They sidled up to the bar and a stunning woman wearing about 5 layers turned around. “Valenti, this isn’t your usual dive.” Her voice was a mix of professionally friendly and challenging.

Kyle shrugged. “I’m showing a work colleague the highlights of Roswell. Alex, this is Maria. Maria, this is Alex.”

The woman held out a hand. Alex gripped it; she was strong, hand warm and tight in his. “What can I get you?”

He had his money for missions; no one would notice if he spent some here. _Probably,_ whispered a voice with a hint of threat.

“A glass of Jack, double, neat,” he said. It’s what he ordered on the rare missions that had him in countries that had alcohol. No one ever tried to get you to drink more or something different if you were carrying around a full glass of whiskey; and no one much noticed if the amber liquid never went down.

“I’ll take a Strongbow,” Kyle said, pulling out his wallet with a smile.

“I’ve got it,” Alex said, putting down 2017-printed $20 in cash. Kyle tilted his head but nodded his thanks.

“Want to take a booth before the crowd comes in?”

Alex looked around again; the likelihood his Dad could have this place bugged was so incredibly low. “Sure.”

Kyle tapped his fingers against the brown glass of the apple cider, _one-two-three-four_ , _one-two-three-four_. “I’m guessing you taking me up on my dozenth invitation to get beers in the past 3 years isn’t because you’ve suddenly decided to drop the ‘0800 hours’ soldier jargon and become a social butterfly.”

“Something happened on that mission, Dr Valenti.” Alex said, voice hard. He bit his tongue, put the whiskey to his lips and set it back down. Kyle took a healthy swig of his.

“If I tell you, people could die if you tell anyone else.” Alex said and it was like watching Kyle rise up out of himself, the doctor taking over from the bro.

He frowned, moving the cider to the side. “I take my job really seriously Captain Manes. My priorities are duty, honor, country. My duty of care, my honor as a Valenti, my service to my country.”

“Where’d you come from, quoting the West Point motto?” Alex laughed, looking around the bar. It was filling up, but there was still a clear path to the door from where they sat.

“My father served in Vietnam, heard it from his commanding officer. Adopted it.”

“Well,” Alex said, “It’s certainly easier to operationalize than ‘Aim High, Fly-Fight-Win.’”

“Yeah,” Kyle said with a slight smile. “But you didn’t come with me off base to talk shit about other branches.”

Alex lifted the whiskey again, hiding the lower half of his face.

“You won’t tell anyone -- at the base. Or anywhere else.” 

“I promise.”

Alex took a breath. “Ok, so, I finished my mission. I went through the 10 second countdown. Then I --” he tried to think of where to start. He frowned: “I’m not crazy.”

Kyle leaned forward, hand extending across the table like he was going to touch Alex’s arm; but he let the gesture end before finishing it.

“I can’t think of anyone more sober and straight than you, Captain Manes.”

Alex flinched inside, but powered through, starting back at the beginning, trying to build momentum to get to the hard part. “Ok, so I finished my mission. I went through my countdown. Then I was somewhere else. Some _when_ else.” He looked at Kyle to see how he reacted.

He gave him a neutral doctor face.

Alex pushed it out in a rush: “I opened my eyes and there was this boy, and he was being hurt. He was being kicked and I stopped him, the man, the father, I stopped him from hurting the kid. And he couldn’t see me, the father, not the kid, the kid could see me. He said it was 1998. He told me I was a crappy ghost, but, I _wasn’t_ , ok? I kicked the father’s ass. Then I healed the kid and,” he shook his head, “I promise I’m not crazy.”

“Did you come back after healing him?”

“I did, but he asked me to take him home. Take him someplace safe. Somewhere he wouldn’t be hurt, where he could sleep safely. His -- his mattress was horrible. No sheets, just an old sleeping bag with the stuffing coming out. It was _awful_ and, like, I would know from shitty living situations.”

Something flickered over Kyle’s face but he kept it on lock-down.

“Did he remind you of anyone?”  
  
Alex shook his head, leaning closer: “No, I mean, he called his foster dad Mr Ridley and said his name was --”

“Can I get you anything?” Maria had bumped up against their table, the crush getting thicker but her smile still bright. Alex shook his head, knowing his smile was shaky at best. Kyle’s smile was much more convincing, and Alex felt a flutter he thought he’d crushed a decade and a half ago. _Dammit, not now_.

Kyle raised his voice to carry over the crowd: “We’re good, thanks Maria.”

“No problem boys, glad at least one table isn’t going to get smashed tonight.”

“Happy to be of service, ma’am,” Alex said, trying to make his smile more real.

His snark earned him a slightly more real smile before she turned to answer a shout:

“DeLuca, you want that sign hung-up outside or in here?”

Alex leaned in towards Kyle, voice hard: “You’ve seen Caulfield, right?”

If he hadn’t been leaning across the table, nearly in Kyle’s space, he might have missed it, that flash of abject horror. Then that flick of fear. Then a casual expression pressed over the top like badly fitting vinyl.

“Haven’t you?”

“Once. That’s Flint’s installation; they keep me pretty busy with missions.”

Kyle shook his head, disgust twisting his soft-looking lips: “And you never pushed? Never wanted to know more about where all _your_ fancy tech came from?” He reached forward, tapping the hard alien metal hidden under Alex’s shirt. Alex shied back at the sharp touch, arm going in front of his body protectively.

“I know what they do there. I know what I think of it. I need to know what you think of it.”

Kyle shook his head: “This conversation could already get us both fired, you know that, right? Even _acknowledging_ ,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “ _time travel_ in public could get us put someplace very bad, for a very long time.”

“Someplace like Caulfield,” Alex pushed. He held his hands palm up. “Very bad.”

Kyle looked up at him, eyes haunted, making a decision. “It’s hell, Alex. It’s what I think hell is. Having to work there, much less,” he waved his hands, and in the gesture Alex saw the sticks-and-stones graveyard, the metal-lined tunnels, the body-sized trash-shoots, the thick smoke out of the incinerator, and the dead, hollow eyes.

“Then how can you still work for the agency, if you know?”

Alex gritted his teeth: “How can you, Dr Valenti? How does that fit into ‘Duty, Honor, Country’?” he took a breath. “I’m not here to debate morality with you, Dr Valenti. I need to know,” he glanced out at the bar and saw a nice pair of hips and an even better ass with slip of golden skin peaking through a tear in the back of the thigh as he leaned over the pool table, setting up a trick shot; he snapped his eyes back to Kyle. “If I knew of a kid, an _alien_ kid, and I wanted to get them help, keep them away from all of this, help them -- just be normal, just be _safe_ \-- do you know anyone who could help them?”

Kyle froze, eyes getting wide and wider. “Woah.” He said, pushing himself back from the table, broad shoulders tight against the curved leather of the booth. He looked around, looked up at the ceiling, and ran his hand over his face. “Woah, Alex, you think that kid in your vision was _real?”_

“What?” Alex said, way too loudly; but the bar was packed now and rowdy, so his tone was lost in the clutter. He leaned forward and hissed: “ _What?”_

Kyle waved his hands, speaking quickly: “I thought you’d had a mental break! That the years of sleep deprivation torture from Flint and emotional and physical abuse from the Colonel had finally cracked your rock hard nut, make you fantasize about saving yourself from that monster you call a father, and you needed a friend to help you get, like, counseling, or something!”

“‘Sleep deprivation’ -- ‘abuse’ -- Dr Valenti, what are you _talking_ about?” Alex’s train of thought hadn’t just been derailed; it was hurtling down a cliff to crash against things he never, _ever_ thought about. _Couldn’t_ and survive. _Wouldn’t_ or else, how would he keep helping people?

Kyle kept going, voice a harsh whisper: “But, no, it’s not _that_ absolutely expected breakdown. You think you actually saw _a real child_ in an impossible vision, not just any child, but an _alien_ child --”

Alex clenched his jaw, shoving himself backwards, whiskey still as full as when he’d gotten it at the bar, getting ready to stand: “You said you didn’t think I was crazy --”

“Test pilots are crazy, Captain Manes!” Kyle said, lunging across the table to grip his arm. “Astronauts are crazy! John Wayne’s directors hit him on set like a bad pony. At some level, most of our heroes have been hurt to get where they are, are broken in some real way. That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve help, don’t need help getting out, but it also _doesn’t_ mean that your psychic break _actually happened_.”

Alex glared at him. “Michael Ridley is real. Michael Ridley is a little boy who, in 1998, met a ghost who promised him he would try to get him help. _I_ made that promise, Kyle. And I’m too,” he paused, biting his lips, “I’m too wrapped up in all this mess to be able to find out, for myself, the best way to get it to him. But I thought you, with your _code_ ,” and he could hear the biting acid in his voice, “I figured you might have an idea of who to ask, could even ask some of the folks at Caulfield who might have helped him, folks who,” he rubbed his hand over his face, voice hushed, “Who aren’t in our system.”

It was the open secret of the Time Agency that there were aliens out in the world, living their own lives. That the Roswell Crash in 1947 wasn’t the only landing and the survivors in Caulfield weren’t the only people out there from other worlds. That there were folks, hiding, who the Time Agency would dissect in a minute to get more of their secrets but whom they hadn’t caught yet.

Kyle’s face was a picture, skepticism and wonder warring across it: “And if I did -- how would you help that kid? It’s 20 years ago, he might be dead or deported or a Nobel Prize winner. How can you possibly think you can help him?”

Alex’s expression wasn’t nice, he knew that. “Like I said, they keep me pretty busy with missions. Either his powers or _whatever_ did it will pull me back into his timeline and I can bring him help, or the next time I’m sent back before 1998, I’ll find a way to get help to him. A few thousand dollars, a plane ticket in an envelope given to an attorney to send only after a particular date, maybe sent to _someone_ on a reservation who can go and pick him up -- we can _do_ this, Kyle. We can save him.”

Kyle was shaking his head. “When you decide to break out of the box, you _really_ go for it, don’t you Captain Manes?”

Alex reached his hand across the bar table, wiggling it until Kyle gripped his hand back. “Call me Alex.”

“Kyle.”

Alex smiled, small and dark. “We’re going to do some real good together, Kyle. I can feel it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about John Wayne is real: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/making-of-john-wayne


	3. Flip on the telly, wrestle with Jimmy

Alex woke, heart pounding hammers in his chest, hands already clutching the thick briefing document Flint had smacked into his chest to wake him up.

“Here’s your briefing for tomorrow’s mission,” his brother sneered, standing over him, bare chested and wearing only his Army-issued boxers as Alex sat up, set the briefing on his knees. Flint leaned down and flipped open the packet, tapping his finger hard enough Alex could feel it on his knee underneath the file.

“Don’t be lazy. Men's lives depend on you, God help them.”

Alex nodded, swallowing down whatever reaction Flint had been trying to bait out of him as the other man turned to get dressed. 

Alex had finally gotten to bed around 2am, with Flint’s ‘soothing’ Rammstein sleep playlist jerking him out of REM just about every time he tried to drop down into it. 

Alex flipped through the file, trying to subtly stretch the unhealed pains from the last mission out of his shoulders and back; he hadn’t slept enough for his body to finish healing. _Maybe I can complete the next one faster and use some of my 24 hour mission slot to catch a nap_ , he thought; it was a useless thought. He rarely had time to sleep on missions.

He was going to Kosovo this time. The siege of Sarajevo. He would be stopping Serbian soldiers from posing as French soldiers and stealing NATO materiel. Two French soldiers had been killed in the counter-attack, so he'd be saving their lives too. Alex flipped to the front of the folder to confirm -- this mission was a special request from NATO. The time analyst who wrote it believed that the embarrassing facts of the case -- “Serb soldiers posing as French troops captured two UN observation posts at either end of the front-line Vrbanja bridge (now the Suada and Olga Bridge, named for the first two victims of the siege) [ without firing a shot ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo#Casualties)” -- as well as the deaths of the two soldiers and the uncounted civilians killed with the seized materiel warranted Alex’s involvement in changing this piece of history.

He checked the date: 27 May 1995. _Yes_ , he thought, starting a warm smile before smothering it, remembering Flint was still in the room.

\--

Alex ate a protein bar for breakfast on his way to his neurological work-up with Kyle, swinging his cane on every-other-step. His stump was red and sore from yesterday.

When he stepped into the examination room, he took one look at Kyle and muttered: “You look worse than I feel.”

Kyle swept a lock of greasy hair off his forehead, giving Alex a grumpy glare: “I was up researching; couldn’t sleep. Want to get beers tonight?”

Alex glanced at the recorder; the red light was off, but he was as sure as breathing that there was _something_ recording them in this room.

“Sure, maybe your place? Last night was a bit noisy.”

Kyle nodded. “Sure.”

He looked Alex over, concern gracing his features. “It’s not going well, the sleeping?”

Alex frowned. “No different than usual, Doc.”

Kyle took a breath -- then visibly decided to change tactics. “We’ll start with reflexes, then strength, then ability to perceive sensations, then psychological questions. Work for you?”

“Whatever you say, Doc. I’ve got a mission scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.” He paused, trying to decide if he would sound out of character if he said this, and deciding it was safe enough. “It’s in 1995. So I’ve got to brush-up on my French.”

“Somalia?” Kyle asked, reaching for a small rubber-headed hammer. Alex shook his head: “Saving French NATO soldiers.”

“Good mission,” Kyle said and started working through the checklists.

\--

After they finished the third test battery, Kyle insisted they walk to the mess hall for lunch. Alex rolled his eyes; protein bars were fine for him. But he didn’t want to go through the psych exam any more than Kyle wanted to give it, so as stalling tactics went, it was fine.

Their route through the white-paint-and-burnished-steel of the Time Agency took them past the Finance office. Kyle huffed and shook his head: “Third week in a row they’ve been late with my check. Papa’s gotta make med school loan payments on time, but try telling that to the Time Agency.”

Alex frowned a little, shaking his head.

Kyle nudged his shoulder: “What, they always pay their heroes on time?”

Alex shook his head again, working his jaw.

“Alex -- what --”

“I don’t get paid.”

Kyle stopped.

There weren’t a lot of people in the hallway, but Alex felt every single one of their eyes on him, his father would be sure to hear he was spending social time with his doctor. _Fuck_.

Kyle’s face was scrunched up in confusion Alex might have called ‘cute’ if he was allowed to have those thoughts.

“What do you -- what do you mean you don’t get paid?”

“I,” Alex shook his head, shrugging. “I’ve never gotten a paycheck. I think they put it in an account, like, I remember going to the bank with my Dad when I was 18, but he handled all the paperwork.”

Kyle’s frown was only getting deeper. “Where do your credit cards draw from?”

Alex bit his lip. “I don’t have any. The Colonel said I would only rack-up debt that he’d have to pay off.” He reached for his belt: “I have my mission wallet, I paid for drinks, it’s -- it’s ok. I’m fine.” He tried a smile.

Kyle looked nearly murderous: “Uh, no. No, it is not. Can I -- look, let’s get lunch. Then we’ll have time to swing by the Finance office and get your banking details, ok?”

“I don’t --”

Kyle huffed in irritation, beginning to walk towards the cafeteria, letting Alex catch up with him. “Look, I know the best practice would be to, like, let you come to your own conclusions, but you sure as fuck can’t do that without your own _money_. _Jesus_.”

Alex frowned but didn’t say anything as they entered the crowded cafeteria, white lab coats and fatigues mixing evenly.

He took the first thing he saw at each of the stations, so ended-up with a blue plastic tray with a hamburger, a bowl of rice, steamed cauliflower, and a box of milk.

Kyle gave him a look over his selections but found a plastic table in the corner for them to occupy.

“So, Sarajevo,” Kyle said. “When were you there?”

“The Colonel had me there from June 1994 to June 1995, when he was there with the NATO detachment. We were,” he swallowed, setting down his hamburger. “We were in Igman, just south of the city. It was one of the sites of the 1984 Olympics.” He shook his head: “Nothing like nightly shelling to sooth a preschooler to sleep.”

Kyle blanched, but after glancing around, didn’t say anything. Then he perked up: “Hey, I just read something cool about Sarajevo,” he started digging in his back, pulling out an honest-to-God paperback book; the cover said _Library: An Unquiet History_. He flipped through it as Alex tried to eat his food as quickly as possible; clearly Kyle’s Code didn’t involve silent mealtimes the way the Manes family practiced them.

“Here,” he said, shoving the book open between them, tapping a paragraph. “It’s from an interview the author did with a librarian and historian named Andras whose family fled the communist takeover in Hungary and who now works at Harvard.”

Alex read:

> “Over coffee one afternoon in the summer of 2001, Andras reminded me of another way to burn books, explained to him by a colleague who survived the siege of Sarajevo. In the winter, the scholar and his wife ran out of firewood, and so began to turn to their books for heat and cooking. ‘This forces one to think critically,’ Andras remembered his friend saying. ‘One must prioritize. First, you burn old college textbooks, which you haven’t read in thirty years. Then there are the duplicates. But eventually, you’re forced to make tougher choices. Who burns today: Dostoevsky or Proust?’ I asked Andras if his friend had any books left when the war was over. ‘Oh yes’ he replied, his face lit by a flickering smile. ‘He still had many books. Sometimes, he told me, you look at the books and just choose to go hungry.’”

Alex’s hand crept to his chest. “Do you think,” his voice cracked and he grabbed his milk, taking a swig, “You think, if I live through this mission, if I succeed, maybe people won’t have to burn as many books?”

Kyle’s face was pained and he slowly gathered the book back, slipping it into his shoulder bag, “Yeah, Alex, I hope so.” He took a breath, shoulders settling down. “So, the bars are kinda limited around here. There’s Saturn’s Rings, which is for tourists,” Alex wrinkled his nose; he had no interest in seeing alien-headed cosplay tonight. “There’s Planet 7,” Kyle said, eyes close on Alex’s face, looking for a shade of recognition. “But I don’t know if that’s really your thing.”

Alex shook his head: “I don’t know any of them.”

“Then would you mind coming back to my place? I’ve got some other books you can look at, and drinking at home is cheaper than drinking out.” He gave him a smile. “I can even cook something. Any dietary stuff I should know about?”

Alex shook his head. He’d cleaned his plate, was glancing over to see how long the line to the clean-up window was, looking for an opening wide enough he could get through without being jostled on his cane.

“Want any dessert or are you ready to go?” Kyle asked.

Alex glanced over, seeing Flint staring at him with some of his Security Team buddies. He shook his head; he didn’t need to catch it and get assigned extra PT because he was caught getting sweets.

Kyle had clearly followed his look and he just stuffed the last of his brownie into his mouth and then stood. “Ok, ready to head out?”

Alex nodded, balancing his empty tray in one hand and against his stomach to the clean-up station. As they headed out, he muttered: “I don’t really need an account of my own.”

Kyle whispered, “What if you want to get some kid a toy or, shit, with the amount you should have saved up, pay for grad school?”

Alex’s stomach clenched. He’d -- he’d never really thought about what he could use his money for. Not really. _It just hadn’t seemed like an option._

“How much do you think is in there?” He asked.

Kyle gave him a ghost of a smile, tilting his head towards the office. “Let’s see.”

\--

$500,000. That was how much money Alex had in his joint checking account with Colonel Jesse Manes. The finance officer told him the Colonel must have been making regular withdrawals for the entire decade, given his annual salary was supposed to be $87,000 a year. Probably transferring them to a private account in his name; but, it was --

“Wow.” Kyle said when he told him after they finished the psych evaluation. “That’s -- that’s a chunk of change, Alex.”

“She said I could go to the bank in downtown Roswell, open a new account, and transfer it. Once I have a new account number, she can just start sending the checks there.”

“Yeah?” Kyle said, voice light. “That is how checking accounts worked.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ve never had one before.” He had the ridiculous urge to stick his tongue out; he bit it instead.

They headed to Kyle’s truck, driving from the outskirts of Roswell into the downtown, through the sunset streets around the main drag to a little fourplex beside a park thick with succulents. The first thing Alex noticed about the neighborhood was how quiet it was; old trucks and new were parked on either side of the street, but aside from a couple walking their beagle, there weren’t any active threats.

Kyle jerked his head up the back stairs and Alex followed him, crutches careful on the painted wood.

Alex looked around the apartment: a warm yellow and red kitchen, a hallway presumably to a bedroom and a guest room, thick red drapes on the windows for when Kyle had to work night shifts. There was a couch and an armchair and it was covered with --

Alex didn’t remember walking to the couch, but when Kyle came over to offer him a beer, he realized he was kneeling in front of it, hands roving over the Mescalero Apache blankets, tracing the designs, lowering his face to smell the thick wool smell of them. When he looked up, Kyle’s face was soft, gentle.

“They were a gift from your Mom when I got my first place. I don’t think I have anything I value more.”

Alex shook his head -- “She never came to visit, when I moved back here. Then the car crash, and --” he shook his head. “I guess I never gave her reason to think I wanted to see her.”

Kyle gave a heavy breath. “It’s -- it’s probably more complicated than that. My Mom would know, they were tight. But that’s probably not a conversation we’ll have time for today.” Alex pushed himself up, hands sturdy on the heavy couch. He accepted the beer gratefully, setting it to the side.

“You said you had research?”

Kyle nodded, reaching under the couch to pull out a thick red binder.

“Want me to start from the top?”

Alex nodded.

“Alright. So, I called in a favor with a friend who works for the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department. She went in after work and looked through the paper files for a foster parent named Ridley.” He wiped his hand over his face. “No reason to think he was in New Mexico, but that was the only lead I could follow and I couldn’t get your description of that kid’s mattress out of my head. We had some luck -- there _was_ a Mr Ridley who was disqualified from being a future foster parent in 1998. The report detailing why was lost in a fire, but, yeah. No clear records on the kids placed in his care, but --”

Alex jumped in: “It means we could provide someone his information early in 1998; where he would be placed, then have them keep an eye on the placement until he moves in, then, like report him or swoop in or claim parentage or something.” Alex took a breath. “The earlier, the better. If they can get him when he’s first placed there, maybe he won’t go through so much trauma.” It hurt something in his chest to think that Michael Ridley wouldn’t have any memory of him, but he squashed it. The kid didn’t need to know Alex existed; he just needed to be saved from that monster of a foster dad. Alex could carry the memory alone in this timeline.

“So your mission is tomorrow, 3pm, right?”

Alex nodded: “1500 hours.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “That gets me to my next bit of research. I,” and he glanced at Alex, “I actually do know someone who could help. Someone who would have had the time and ability to go get a kid like Michael Ridley, make sure he got free of the system in a way that didn’t screw-up his entire life.”

He paused, then flipped to the next page in the briefing. At the top was --

“Oh.” Alex said, tracing his finger down the black-and-white photo of his mother. His vision swum for a moment; he must be hungry. He took a breath, voice sounding shaky: “I told him I’d tell my alien friends about him, not that I’d go running to Mommy.”

Kyle took a breath, taking the binder back, folding it gently closed. “I don’t know for sure, but I got the impression, just stuff my Mom mentioned, being surprised Sara would let you keep getting deeper and deeper in with the Time Agency, given the provenance of so much of their tech. Like it was something she knew about, felt connected to. I think,” he took a hard breath, “I think, given our time and resources, and that we don’t know the next time you’re going to heading back before 1998, your best bet is to drop a line to Sara Shanta-Manes.”

Alex flipped through the briefing, noting how different the formatting was from his usual mission briefs. _Sloppy_ said a voice inside that sounded like Flint.

He shook his head to clear it; this wasn’t an official mission briefing, it was a side project. _An illegal use of government resources for private gain_.

A quiet voice inside disagreed: _it’s not like the government was paying for the extra time I travel or even powering it; they had no idea how I got to Michael’s foster placement or gotten back._ In the past day, Alex had been reconsidering more and more whether _every_ use of his time had to be considered spending a government resource. Whether he might have time that was -- just his.

_Maybe._

“She would have to apply to be a foster parent through CYFD at least 6 months before wanting to gain custody over Michael, with background checks and the 30 day course. But,” he said, reaching for a pen from the handmade mug on the side table, and making a note, “If she got an emergency coverage order -- no, they didn’t allow those until the mid-2000s. Hmm,” he said, tapping the pen on his lips. “Yeah, easiest is if she gets full certification.”

He made another note.

“Hey,” Kyle said, voice careful. “Why do you know so much about the foster care system?”

“Hmm?” Alex said, still trying to think through the fastest timelines of getting his mother certified as a foster parent.

“The man who doesn’t know how to open a checking account knows what the certification process is for being a foster parent in New Mexico?”

Alex shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe I wasn’t always as resigned to the Colonel having sole custody as everyone thought. Once I realized there was no way I could get my Mom to have full custody, not with Dad having collected dirt on every family court judge in the state. So, emancipation or foster care. Those were the options.”

“Alex,” Kyle said, and there was a look on his face. Something like horror. Something like heartbreak.

Alex shrugged again, looking down at the photo of his mother open in the binder on his lap: Sara Shanta-Manes, 1957 - 2016. “I didn’t go through with it. It wasn’t like I could get out from under him once I was at the Time Agency and it wasn’t like I had a lot of other career options.” He shrugged the tension out of his shoulders. “Anyway -- this is a good plan. If I could get into my account, I could pull enough cash to cover his living expenses for a few years, since if I remember right, Mom didn’t have a lot to work with in the 90s.” 

Kyle glanced back at the kitchen clock: 8:07pm.

“Well, the banks are closed for today. But if you stay over, we can go by first thing before work. You have two forms of ID?”

Alex nodded. He had his mission belt with him; in it were half-dozen different IDs, but at least two of them should match.

Then he froze: “Kyle, I can’t stay over. Flint --” and he paused, not sure how to say why he needed to be back at base to sleep in that room.

Kyle looked stubborn and waved his hand for the pen. Alex handed it over, watching him scribble something on a neon turquoise post-it notepad he pulled out of the sidetable drawer. He waved it at Alex. He tried to read his handwriting but it was totally illegible.

He raised his eyebrows and Kyle ran his finger under it, reading it aloud: “Prescribed to Captain Alex Manes: 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night for 30 days. By order of his physician, Dr Kyle Valenti.”

Alex laughed. “That doesn’t sound likely.”

“Well, I’ve got a guest room. You can crash here until you get a car and your own place.”

“My own -- Kyle, why --”

Kyle shook his head, muttering to himself. “I’m going too fast again.” He glanced up at Alex. “Tonight, Alex. Have a real, actual home cooked meal with me tonight, get a good night’s rest before tomorrow's double mission. I’ll even text Flint to make sure he doesn’t come looking for you. I’m sure he’d got a tracker or seven on you.”

Alex closed his eyes, thinking. It had been -- years. Years since he’d slept anywhere other than base housing, usually with Flint nearby, except for the snatches he caught on missions.

Kyle’s voice was soft, nudging him: “Come on, at least take a look at the room.”

Alex nodded. “Ok.” He stood with the help of his crutches, and worked his way to the room. It was small, with big framed photos of Idaho’s saw toothed mountains where he seemed to remember Kyle had done his residency. 

But it was the bed that convinced him.

It was a full, tall enough he could sit on it easily, two thick pillows in what looked like soft navy cotton.

And it was absolutely covered in Diné blankets. Alex looked back to where Kyle had propped his shoulder against the while hallway wall. He had a slight flush high on his cheeks. “Maybe I got into collecting them after your Mom passed. Maybe it’s something I do with my Mom on the weekends, go to tribal government-hosted sales and pawn shops. I usually get Diné weavings, since there’s so few Apache weavers and I don’t have a lot of room for a basket or a Pueblo pottery collection. But blankets -- there’s just something about them.”

Alex braced himself on the high, solid footboard and grazed his hand over the rough wool of the top blanket, feeling the red and the white and grey, forming the hard geometric shapes that always reminded him of the unique cloud formations over the Southwest in the summer.

“I’ll stay,” he said.

\--

That night, as Alex fell asleep in the small town quiet, only the odd car to distract his ears, the smell of the best times in his childhood rose up around him. Lanolin and cotton sheets, the heavy weight of blankets on the rare chilly nights in winter.

He thought about their conversations that night.

When Kyle had asked, he hadn’t mentioned that, for an idealistic summer in his first few years at the Time Agency, he’d considered becoming a foster parent. He knew he wasn’t a catch for a partner, not having gone to any formal schooling except what he could cobble together on bases; he didn’t have a lot of shared life experience with pretty much anyone. But he could learn to be a good foster parent, give kids a safe space while their parents got their shit together. He’d daydreamed about it; still did, sometimes, on long runs, long dives, anytime he had enough time and distance he could start to hear his own small voices.

He wondered where Michael Ridley was sleeping tonight, whether he felt safe and warm too.

\--

Captain Alex Manes crouched down, glimpsing his four-year-old self being led through around a corner of the former Olympic village in Igman overlooking Sarajevo. His small hand had been clenched tight in the Colonel’s. 

He didn’t remember this day. 

The Time Analysts knew from his father’s obsessively detailed records that he’d been here, on a tour of the base, then he’d been presented to all 200 NATO soldiers and staff at what was now the UN-controlled airport that formed their major base. From the sound of applause through the pine-thick and windy camp, that was about to happen. 

He’d been four. 

Alex checked his replacement mask, black and like a palm across his lips. He was as anonymous a killer as the Time Agency could hope for; thankfully, this mission didn’t require morphine and his service Beretta M9 holstered in the small of his back was only for if everything went to total shit.

As the drag of the time stream finished leaving his body and blue-orange-purple light of the device embedded in his chest faded beneath his black tac uniform, Captain Alex Manes remembered the plan. He had 24 hours to stop the Serb army from taking the Sauda and Olga bridge. Between him and the bridge were 30km of rough terrain patrolled by 3 armies. As a small mercy, the hike was mostly downhill. He glanced up; the weather would get worse before it got better and he’d rather be off the peak of Mt Igman before the thunderstorm broke.

But Alex had something to do first.

In 10 years of hopping into other people’s lives and doing what needed to be done, Alex had learned just a few constant tricks. 

  1. Embrace chaos
  2. Move like you know where you’re going and someone is expecting you
  3. Never stay long



So Alex wove through the narrow alleys and broken bunkers of the Olympic village, heading to the main administrative building that doubled as the air traffic control. With so many different militaries, his bland uniform and quick pace kept most eyes off of him. 

He ducked his head and sidled up to the door guard, who was wearing an American flag on his arm: “I’m looking for the post office?”

“Around the back -- you new here?”

“Aren’t we all?” Alex replied with a small smile that the guard returned with a wry huff.

Alex headed the direction he’d pointed.

Making sure soldiers could write home and get messages from home was one of the key pieces of morale infrastructure in any military engagement; men in WWI used to receive boxes of chocolates from home in the trenches. In his backpack, Alex had stashed a hand-written letter addressed to his mother. He and Kyle had drafted and then he'd written out his request, along with every detail he knew about Michael Ridley. After their visit to the bank, Alex had enclosed it in an envelope with $9,980 in pre-1995 cash. It was the most he could include without declaring the cash to customs, which might flag it to sticky-fingered carriers.

The UN camp's postal office was operating out of the side of one of the stadiums. It had a handwritten sign that said "Post Office" in English, French, German, and all of the Balkan languages. The sign was under a window that, if Alex wasn’t very much mistaken, had last been used to sell candy-corn during the 1984 Olympics. He hustled to duck under the narrow awing as the rain began to trickle from the stone-dark sky. The woman working there had close-cropped blond hair and a thick Swiss accent. He unzipped his bag and carefully pulled out a letter and a package, handing them over. 

“It’s to my Mom,” he said, and she clenched her fingers a little more tightly around them. The letter was addressed to his mother, but the package was for an attorney handled the Time Agency’s needs in ‘90s. The man’s firm mostly hand-delivered letters on a schedule. Alex’s plan was simple: if the first letter didn’t reach or sway his mother, she would get a personal visit in 1996, 1997, and 1998 from one of the lawyer’s couriers, repeating the request. Each of those letters enclosed the same amount as the first -- Michael shouldn’t have to sleep on another shitty mattress ever again if Alex’s plan worked out. Kyle had looked at him like he was nuts when he’d withdrawn nearly $40,000 in cash, but he’d just looked him (and the shocked teller) in the eye and said: “It’s my money.”

_And if this plan doesn’t work, then I’ll try again until I figure this out._

There was something, new; fractious; smart and difficult and pure-feeling; it was something else having a mission that he’d come up with himself, that wasn’t anyone’s but his.

Alex headed into the trees, letting the rising mists envelope him in the morning quiet, making sure he was out of anyone’s sight before beginning to work his way towards the base perimeter. 

It would have been a pleasant 5 hour hike down the mountain if he hadn’t been dodging patrols, hoisting himself up rain-slick pine trees and ducking through swelling creeks to avoid getting caught. When he got to the United Nations observational posting, his stump was aching, his hands were tingling from swinging at his sides for too long, and he’d been practicing his lines in French long enough they were beginning to sound like jumbled nonsense. He’d also spent more time than he cared to admit daydreaming about how happy Michael would be to find a safe, quiet place once the letters did their work.

Once he reached the perimeter of the UN Observational Post by the bridge, for the first time since the post office, Alex stepped into another person’s clear line of sight. The connection -- the French soldier’s eyes meeting his, Alex’s hands going behind his head, his knees hitting the ground and sinking into the pine-scented much -- was a shock. The soldiers shouted questions at him and he answered them, raising his voice over the hurling wind:

“My name is Captain Peter Manes of the US Air Force, I have a message for Capitaine Jules Lannes.”

The C.I.A. liked to brag they hired the best costumers from the best drama schools; but they had nothing on the Time Agency. The Time Agency didn’t bother with college theater departments -- they went straight to the Society for Creative Anachronism, to the Dickens Faire crew, to cosplayers and reenactors. They hired people whose jobs didn’t depend on them getting time details correctly -- their joy depended on it. Those amazing geeks were the reason why the letter Alex handed over to the soldiers to give to their captaine was immediately accepted. Why Captaine Lannes immediately doubled his patrols, instituted new call signs and why, 12 hours later, the Serb soldiers trying to pose as French soldiers were peacefully caught and detained.

But Alex didn’t get to see that. Alex’s cover lasted about long enough for his letter to be believed and their subterfuge to be averted; then the _actual_ Peter Manes was located at Travis AFB in California and Alex was asked, politely but firmly, to take a seat in a vacant office while that was being worked out. 

The office had a stunning view of the Miljacka River and the arcing architecture of the besieged city. The rainstorm was concocting new kinds of muck to run out of the streets of Sarajevo and into the river, but the rippling shapes of the current caught Alex’s eyes more often than not. When it got too dark to see those, he enjoyed seeing the stars as they winked and peaked through the shifting cloud-cover.

He slept, a little. But for the most part, he read. In that vacant office, alone and only lightly guarded as the French soldiers got wine drunk celebrating foiling the Serb soldiers’ plan, Alex kicked back, heels up, head back tipped all the way back, reading. He worked his way through the 1995 printing of _Ender’s Game_ and the 1999 printing of _Ender’s Shadow,_ careful not to bend the pages or break the spines. If his plan had gone right, and he was lucky enough to end this trip with another 1000 seconds to check-in on Michael, he wanted to have something to give him. The kid wouldn’t know him from Adam, but if whatever force had let him intervene gave him the grace, the gift of seeing his intervention actually _work_ , he didn’t want to come empty handed. And while he figured his Mom or whoever she had found to care for Michael might have bought him the books, he might appreciate having second copies to give to his friends.

When he had a minute left before the timestream swallowed him whole, he tucked himself into a corner of the damp office, two stone walls against his back. 

He tried to breathe through the pain in his chest. But each kick, each impossible moment he wanted to breathe and _couldn’t_ , it fed the rising panic. 

_Trapped, trapped, trapped, hand on his throat, body out of control, in_ _his_ _control --_

He fought it back and back and back, keeping his body soft and relaxed, fought until -- blue light, orange tendrils, purple edges --

Alex opened his eyes, felt the drywall at his back give a little with the pressure he was putting into it. He eased forward, scanning the room as he heard a small gasp.

“Ghost?” Came a young boy’s voice from a sturdy child-sized bed firmly placed in a corner of the room. It was autumn-cool in the house, the half-moon just visible through the cracked window. Alex took a long breath and realized -- this was home. This was his childhood bedroom; or, at least, the one he’d slept in one the rare weeks he’d been able to visit. His mother must have rearranged it for one week a year and sent Michael to stay with someone else, because he had no new memories of growing up with Michael.

“Michael?” He whispered, pulling his mask off and tucking it in his bag. "You remember me?"

A small figure sat up in the bed, the mop of curls nodding excitedly. 

He saw him click on the table-lamp; the lampshade was in the shape of a UFO. There was something black wrapped around the base of it, something made of medical-grade cloth; it was familiar.

Alex slipped his backpack off his shoulders, unzipping it as Michael tumbled himself to the thickly carpeted floor, keeping his Wolverine-covered blanket wrapped around him. His face was clear of bruises, eyes bright, cheeks full.

Alex couldn’t have felt warmer if someone had wrapped _him_ up in a Wolverine blanket. He checked his watch: 903 seconds left.

“I _knew_ you’d come back!” The boy whispered. “I didn’t tell anyone about you, obviously.”

Alex nodded; he wished Michael wasn’t practiced at keeping secrets, but it was a survival habit he’d need.

“What year is it?” Alex asked, rummaging in the backpack.

“1999, September,” Michael answered, grinning wide; he had braces. Alex's heart grew another three sizes; _the money must have arrived._ “I didn’t think you’d do it, but the day after the social worker got me from Mr Ridley’s, Sara came to get me from the group home.” He worked his jaw. “She said someone sent money; a lot of money. Was that you?”

Alex shrugged; he hadn’t thought his Mom would share anything about the cash with Michael, but maybe she talked more to kids who lived with her full time.

“Why’d you do that?”

Alex tried to explain: “I had the money. I wasn’t using it. Money -- do you know about inflation?”

Michael shook his head; _right, what 9-year-old knows about inflation_ , Alex berated himself. “So, money gets printed by the government and it goes up and down in value," it was at that moment that Alex realized _he'd_ didn't really know about inflation either, so he summarized: "Basically, what I sent you was about half of what I make in a year.”

Michael nodded slowly, “Ok, but why?”

Alex looked down into the backpack and pulled out the nearly-new copies of _Ender’s Game_ and _Ender’s Shadow_. He held them up. “Have you read these yet?”

Michael cocked his head: “I’ve read _Ender’s Game_ , but the library doesn’t have _Ender’s Shadow_ yet.”

Alex nodded. “So, I got these for you. Because I loved them when I was your age --”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 28.”

“Where are you living now -- in my now?”

Alex closed his eyes. “Let’s see, in 1999 -- Kosovo and Sudan.”

Michael frowned. “Those -- like the places the wars are?”

Alex shifted his jaw, answering: “Yes. So I had these books when I was your age, and I wished I had a place like this to be,” he gestured to the room. With the lamp on, he could see there were big maps of the star system on the walls, a periodic table of elements, and a tall bookcase full of _Harry Potter_ and Tamora Pierce and Anne McCaffrey and _Star Wars_ novelizations. “And the only people who say money doesn’t matter have never lived out of a suitcase or a backpack. Money would have helped, some, when I was your age. So. I have the chance to help someone else. To make things better.” He paused, voice getting quiet: “Are things better for you?”

Michael nodded seriously. “Sara’s alright. It’s nice here. Quiet. I don’t have to,” and he tucked his arm around his stomach. He seemed to stumble for words. “It’s good here.”

Alex felt a real, crooked smile move across his face. “I’m really glad, Michael. You deserve to feel safe."

Michael frowned, picking at the tag on his blanket. “So, what happened to the other me? The one who didn’t meet you?”

Alex carefully piled the books in front of him, where Michael could get to them when he left.

“I don’t know; no one does, for sure. Because I have this,” he tapped his chest where the device was glowing softly, “I remember about 151 timelines. That’s what it means to be Time Aware: I can travel in time and I can keep them all organized in my head. I don’t know what happened to you in any of the other ones, and all the evidence of those lives is out of my reach now this change has happened.” He paused, trying to frame what he was saying in a way that would make sense to a 9-year-old. “Life has so many different ways things go, sometimes tiny things make all the difference; sometimes big things do. I think the Michael who never met me is still strong and brave and smart and hardworking. Maybe things are just harder.” He shook his head. “There’s no way to know. It’s better to focus on the world in front of us.”

“I don’t know if I can -- I worry about him.”

Alex nodded. “That’s ok too.”

“I also --” then Michael paused, picking up the books and fiddling with the pages. “I had something else to ask. If you can help.”

Alex leaned forward: “I’ll try. Tell me.”

Michael took a breath: “Ok, when I was found, I wasn’t alone. I had -- I don’t know if they were a brother and a sister or cousins or friends or _what_ but there were two other kids. Kids,” he wiggled his fingers, floating the two books out of his lap and into the bookcase, tucked between the worn bindings of _Protector of the Small_ and _Rose Daughter_ , “Like me. And I don’t know how to find them. I don’t know their names, I don’t --”

“Hey,” Alex said, voice low and calm, “Hey, I’ll try to find them, ok? If I do, what do you want -- do you want to meet them?”

Michael nodded, curls flopping across his eyes. “I just -- I’ve met some others here, like me. Adults. But they don’t know how to find them and,” he paused, voice quiet, “They’re scared.”

Alex felt a chill. He checked his watch: 203 seconds.

“What are they scared of, the others like you?”

Michael’s eyes were massive, but he had a stubborn set to his jaw. “There’s people. Who hunt people. Like us. Like me.”

He glanced down at the device shining through Alex’s shirt. Then up into his eyes. “That’s why I can’t ever tell anyone who I am. What I am.”

Alex nodded, trying to swallow the knot in his throat. “Yeah, it’s a good idea to stay safe.”

Michael shook his head: “But I don’t _want_ to be safe! I want to be _brave!_ ”

Alex glanced at the door to the hallway, knowing his Mom's bedroom was just on the other side of it; but from what he remembered, his mother was a deep sleeper. He kept his voice low: “I’ll make you a deal, just like last time, ok?”

“Depends on the deal,” Michael said, eyes narrowed.

“Good caution,” Alex said. “Here’s the deal: I’ll try and find the other two, get them to see you. Can you try to stay safe, stay away from the people who are hunting you?”

Michael looked mutinous, but then he nodded.

Alex’s watch read 32 seconds.

“If we get to see each other again, and it’s after this meeting, tell me what you think of the books?”

“Ok,” Michael said, glancing up at them before tucking his blanket more tightly over his shoulders. “Bye Ghost.”

“Bye, Michael,” Alex said, sitting back against the wall, taking a deep breath. With his last seconds he said: “Give Sara a hug for me.”

The last thing he heard before he was sucked back into the timestream was: “I will.”

\--

When Alex opened his eyes in the time chamber to screaming alarms and flashing lights, he realized with a start what the black cloth wrapped around the base of Michael’s UFO lamp had been: it was his lost face mask.


	4. so try and be cool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the new tags!

“So you gave the kid a book on child soldiers. And he asked for your help finding his family.”

Alex frowned, stirring the pot of pasta sauce he was in charge of. Kyle had told him they would be cooking dinner on the way back after his mission debrief; Alex had told him he had no idea how to do that. 

Kyle had given him a knife to dice the peppers. 30 seconds later he had put him in charge of stirring while he tried to buff out the gouges Alex had left in his cutting board.

“I didn’t give him a book about child soldiers; I gave him the two best Orson Scott Card books --”

“Which are about child soldiers.”

Alex shook his head, wiggling the long wooden spoon in a little circle in the middle of the stock pot. Kyle caught the movement, put his hand out and Alex handed him the spoon. He demonstrated scraping the edges of the pot with the spoon, scraping across the bottom, then stirring all the bits he caught back into the middle. Alex nodded and took the spoon back, copying the shape of the motion.

“They’re about being brave and being smart -- and the real trick is to make sure he reads _Ender’s Shadow_ , because Bean is the best character and a way better role-model than Ender.”

“Yeah? Why’s that.”

Kyle’s voice was deceptively light; Alex was starting to think of this as his ‘undercover therapy voice.’

“He doesn’t get sucked in. He knows what’s happening to him, and to all of the others, then uses that knowledge to protect people, and,” then Alex paused. He didn’t know what Kyle was going to think about this part, but just thinking of that passage made his heart beat faster.

“And?” Kyle prompted. 

“And he comforts the dying. He -- when all of the kids are dive-bombing the alien planet, when Ender sends all of his friends to die, it’s Bean who tells them what they need to hear, tells them it has meaning, that their lives -- their deaths -- means something. Something real.”

Kyle was frowning when Alex glanced over but he kept chopping the white mushrooms. 

Alex kept talking, scraping the corners of the pot with the wooden spoon. “It’s like -- everyone dies. Everyone has to. And there’s no good deaths;” he knew his voice sounded bitter, but the words just kept coming, “that I know for sure. But there’s deaths with more and less connection. And I think the better deaths, they have more connection. Bean gave his people, his friends, his family, connection when they died.”

Kyle’s voice was careful: “I don’t know if 9-year-old Michael Shanta is going to pick all that up.”

Alex shook his head; “Probably not. But it’s a good book. And Mom had already bought him, like, every other good book out for kids in 1999.”

Kyle grinned: “Yeah, not a high time for YA literature.”

Alex returned the smile, thinking of the spare bookshelves that had passed for base libraries.

“So, I was thinking. You just got back from Sarajevo today and your next mission isn’t until Wednesday, right?”

Alex nodded: “Right. Doha, Qatar, 2010.” 

“So, you’re not doing anything tomorrow? The whole day?”

Alex frowned. “I figured you’d get tired of me and I’d go hang around the Time Library. Marie Tran gave me the Ender books gratis and sometimes she likes help with the card catalogue.”

“Is that something you could help her with a different day?”

“Probably. I’ll need to find a time to do it; I don’t like to just _take_ from the library.”

Kyle said: “Why not?”

Alex frowned at the thin layer of golden grease on top of the sauce, stirring it back in. “Nearly any other Time Agent can go back in time and buy a box of books for Marie Tran. I’m one of three living Time Aware Americans whose timestream intersects with any of our warzones and conflicts. I’m the _only_ one that was at nearly all of them. They can’t use my time to get period-appropriate clothes or paper or books or any of the fun stuff the other Agents get to do. I _have_ to do the military missions. They don’t have anybody else.”

Kyle frowned. “You have 24 hours per mission, why couldn’t someone who was in, like, New York City in 2010 catch a plane flight to the Middle East? Let you rest?”

Alex gritted his teeth; hiding his expression. He wished the medical staff would get the same briefings he did, because explaining this was fucking basic and he hated it. “It’s a 15 hour flight, minimum, to Doha. Even if the person you’re supposed to kill is _in Dubai_ \-- and not, say, Mosul -- customs and stuff on both ends will take 2-3 hours. That leaves you less than 5 hours to plan a mission, execute it without getting caught or seen, and get out without dying and wasting all that training and tech. That limits the kinds of missions you can do unacceptably.”

Kyle muttered: “I would say what’s happening currently is pretty unacceptable, but --”

Alex talked over him. “With me, I appear within 100 feet of wherever I was on my original pass through that timeline, which is usually less than 5 hours drive or hike from any given warzone target.”

“But you didn’t have a _choice_ about that, Alex!” Kyle burst out, voice loud before he carefully laid the knife he was using down flat on the granite countertop and said in a much more normal tone as he lifted his newly-scarred cutting-board full of quartered mushrooms: “Scoot over, I’m going to sauté these. You can watch or set the table. Soup’s up in 5.”

Alex went to set the table, deep red plates and a big yellow platter for the pasta and pasta sauce.

In a quietly carrying voice he said: “You know, in Ethiopia, you eat the stew with injera in your right hand, just scooping it into these little pockets and then putting it in your mouth.”

“Injera?” Kyle said, bringing the drained pasta over to the central platter.

“It’s like this, blue-ish sourdough bread. Kinda like a crépe? It acts both as the plate and the utensil.” He smiled a little, adjusting the forks and knives, “It makes clean-up really easy.”

“I bet,” Kyle said, going back to the small kitchen to get the pot with the pasta sauce. “When were you in Ethiopia?”

Alex closed his eyes, “That was where we were based in 1994, for the intervention in Somalia. Then again for a visit for a few months in 2007.”

“' _Intervention,’_ ” Kyle muttered darkly, pouring himself a glass of water. 

Alex switched back topics: “Why’d you want to know my schedule?”

“Hmm?”

Alex served himself a heaping portion of pasta, blowing on the sauce to cool it faster. “Tomorrow? Monday?”

“Oh!” Kyle said, brightening immediately: “I have the day off because I worked this weekend and wanted to drive up to Albuquerque and go to Cliff’s. Ride some roller coasters, reset a little. Wanted to see if you wanted to come.”

“Why?” and he could hear it, just for a moment, the echo of Michael’s voice, asking him the same thing. _Why are you being nice to me? What do you want?_

Kyle’s voice was careful, precise, when he said: “Sometimes, when some bad stuff has happened you didn’t have any control over, it can help to go someplace and scream your head off about it. It’s a lot more socially acceptable to do that in theme parks than, say, the bank or the grocery store. But you do you.”

“I don’t need to scream about stuff, Kyle. I’m fine.”

“Who’s talking about you, superhero?” Kyle asked, piling more pasta on his plate. “I had to deal with my high school rival’s genius brother pounding down my apartment door as ass-o-clock in the morning this morning, wanting to complain about his love-life. This reset is for _me._ ” 

Alex looked around; after they came back from his mission debriefing at the Time Agency, he hadn’t noticed any sign someone had been here in the 24 hours he was gone. 

Kyle correctly interpreted his look: “I didn’t let him in. That boy needs to learn boundaries like nobody’s business.”

“Hmm,” Alex said. Then he took a breath: “I’m in. Let’s go to the amusement park.”

“Really?” Kyle said, eyes lighting up, then rushing to not give Alex an opening to reconsider, “Great, it’s about $40 for the tickets and we can pay at the gates. We can just go on the same coaster over-and-over since it’s the off season. That should keep the walking down to a minimum.”

Alex nodded; after a 30km hike on his prosthetic, he hadn’t in-fact been looking to walk a lot more for a few days. But he also couldn’t remember the last time someone thought of that kind of thing other than him and outside the parameters of mission specs.

“Ready for dessert?” Kyle asked and Alex looked up at him as he stood. 

“We didn’t make any dessert.”

Kyle opened the fridge with a flare and --

_Wow._

The entire thing was _packed_ with different kinds of ice cream.

“It seemed like you haven’t gotten a lot of chances to try out American desserts, so, after this morning’s close call, I went to get a selection. I figured as long as you’re crashing here -- which I hope is for the fully prescribed 30 days of good sleep but that is totally up to you -- we can try some of these out.”

“Kyle, we can’t _possibly_ eat all of that in a month.”

Kyle’s smile was wicked: “We can try.”

\--

After trying Cherry Garcia (10/10), Prickly Pear Gelato (8/10), and Cookie Dough (3/10 -- he just couldn’t get behind the texture) Alex had laughingly begged off trying anymore, heading to the guest room. He’d brought his work laptop, thinking he might want to read up on his next mission.

He had a little bit more space in his head than usual and he had a quiet thought. So instead he pulled out his new debit card, went online, and bought his own laptop and phone, sending them to Kyle’s address. On a whim, he picked out a pair of headphones; he could feel his brain expanding to fill the quiet darkness of the room, not kept locked up tight by all of the noise of Flint’s music. But he wondered if there _were_ kinds of music he’d like. There had been airmen with radios at the bases and camps he’d grown-up in and with a little bit of time to himself, he could start thinking about what he remembered liking.

He bought the tech and then took the battery out of the laptop, heading through the livingroom where Kyle was watching TV with headphones in. He nodded to him then took the laptop and put it in the fridge. Sitting next to the left-overs wouldn’t hurt the electronics any, but the fridge door would stop any listening devices. He put his work phone on top of it.

“Do you have that book you showed me the other day, the one about libraries?”

Kyle nodded, rummaging in his messenger bag and pulling it out.

“I’ll give it back in the morning?”

Kyle flapped his hand at him, eyes already drifting back to the show on the big screened TV; something with ghosts and monsters and teenagers fighting them.

He flipped through the book, finally using the index to find the chapter with the quote Kyle had shown him:

> “Over coffee one afternoon in the summer of 2001, Andras reminded me of another way to burn books, explained to him by a colleague who survived the nearly three year siege of Sarajevo.”

Alex didn’t have a photographic memory, but he knew, _knew_ in the timeline he’d just left, the siege of Sarajevo had been nearly _four_ years. _One less year of war._

Kyle would never know the difference. Oh, he knew Alex went to Sarajevo. He might even remember Alex or someone else told him there’d been a change to the timeline of the war. 

But he wouldn’t _know_ it. Only Alex carried that knowledge; Alex and anyone else who was Time Aware, and only then if they knew to look for the change.

He could look up the casualty counts later, compare them to what he remembered. Paper records, computer records, oral histories, _everything_ changed after his missions. But he could see the faces of the French soldiers who’d survived because he’d made it in time the day before. He knew they had families; they’d sent cards for him to pick-up when he got back. He -- and the Time Analysts who’d recommended that mission for him -- had also hoped that a timeline where France had not had that massive public fuck-up might be a timeline where they where they were more open to supporting future NATO missions.

Usually he put himself to bed by counting the number of people he’d saved, working through their names, their faces, their partner’s and children’s faces. He weighed them against the ones he’d lost, the ones he’d failed to save, trying to find if the balance was ever in his favor.

He flipped over onto his stomach, arm around his head. His usual sleep routine wasn’t working tonight. Tonight, he was thinking about what Kyle had said. If there was a hidden cost, a cost _he’d_ hidden, to these missions.

Then he thought about the bookcase overflowing with books, the new posters on the wall, and Michael’s braces. He thought about how he was going to try to get his next mission after this one to be back before 1999, so he could help get those other two kids to see Michael. He didn’t know how, but he had time to figure it out. Time travel was the reason he had been able to help Michael; it was what he was good for.

\--

Alex looked up. And up. And up. 

The New Mexico Rattler in Albuquerque was an old school wooden roller coaster with little carts that pressed people femur-to-shoulder against each other. He watched as a dozen people of a wide range of colors, ages, genders and scream-volumes swooped by.

Kyle was all big eyes and jigging feet with an armful of blue cotton candy. He’d tried to get Alex to eat some, but Alex was starting to suspect that Kyle’s love of sugar was his thing, rather than a general adult thing.

“Are you excited?”

Alex turned a level gaze at him. “I’ve parachuted into war zones, Kyle. I’m going to be fine.”

Kyle nudged him with his shoulder: “See, it won’t be any fun if you’re just, like, trying to _endure_ it. I know you can _endure_ the light G-forces and the loud noises and all the whipping around. It’s about seeing if you actually _enjoy_ it: the chance to let go, to be silly, to scream not because you’re in pain or trying to be scary or whatever, but because --” he swept his arm out, encompassing the alarmingly rattling contraption behind him, “Because you get to feel your stomach clench and flip and it’s safe to feel it, to just clench your hands on the bar or throw them up high, to make stupid faces, just to -- to be for a bit. Just react. No test, no Colonel watching at the end of the obstacle course, just -- “ he shook his head at Alex’s expression, “Just some fun.”

“I’ll consider it,” Alex grunted, shifting his weight on the asphalt path, then glanced up; Kyle narrowed his eyes. _Oh no_ , Alex realized with slowly dawning horror, _He might actually be starting to get my sense of humor_. 

“You’re fucking with me,” Kyle said. Alex smirked; _busted._

“But you’ve never been on one of these before?”

Alex shook his head. “I did Ski Dubai in 2010, right after Doha. Went to the beach in the morning, then skiing indoors, then the beach again.”

“Sounds really dire and taxing.”

“Well, it’s not a lot of fun when the Emiratis kept mistaking me for a tout because of my skin color and ordering me to carry their bags,” 

Kyle frowned: “What do you mean?”

Alex shook his head. “Never mind.” They stepped into line for a specific cart; Kyle jostled to get them the one in front. Three more runs and they were up.

Kyle had offered to get him a disability pass, but he didn’t want it; he didn’t like talking about his leg, didn’t like getting stared at if he wasn’t visibly disabled enough. Kyle hadn’t argued.

Kyle kept his voice low: “You don’t have to do that, you know.”

Alex cocked his head, watching how the next group of people got into the little seats, strapped themselves in; how the ride worker checked their belts before setting them off down the slope.

“Do what?”

“You don’t have to pretend you haven’t done all these experiences. Just because I haven’t gone to all the places you’ve gone doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy hearing about them.” He flashed him a smile Alex was sure worked on other people, “You don’t have to be the same as someone else to be their friend. Just find them interesting enough to want to know more about them.”

“It puts people off,” Alex said. Kyle cocked his head and he finished the thought. “How I grew up; how I am. People don’t like things they don’t understand, things they can’t compare to themselves.”

“Shitty people, maybe,” Kyle said as they shuffled forward; they one more pair in front of them.

“So, why would the Emiratis -- that’s citizens of the UAE, right?” Alex nodded. “Why would they mistake you for a tout?”

Alex blinked, thinking of white kiffeyas and thobes, dhows at sunset and Lamborghinis used as police cars. “When I was there, in 2010, 95% of people living in Dubai weren’t Emirati. Folks were Indian and Pakistani and Iranian, Indonesian and Bangladeshi and Piñoy -- Filipino. The working class, the middle class -- they’re all the non-Emiratis. Most folks there haven’t met a lot of Apache guys out there, so, just to look at me, they assumed I was Desi -- from the subcontinent. So I would be in the Ibn Battuta Mall, practicing my Khaleegi Arabic -- that’s the Arabic spoken in the Gulf -- and ladies would ask me to carry their bags to the car.” He shook his head. “They got _mega_ pissed when I wouldn’t.”

“Sounds like a pretty strict class system,” Alex nodded. They moved to the front of the line.

“Doha was weirder, though. We were there for a month and I wanted a fresh pair of jeans. I tried to find, a used clothes shop in the souq, since I just had my allowance to work with. The souq is kind of like a market?” He looked up the track, watching their carts finish the final turn and rattle towards them. “But there were no used clothes shops _anywhere_. There was no middle class in Doha, all Tata buses and Mercedes, no Hondas or Toyotas.”

Their cart emptied and Kyle gestured for him to get in first. He did, easing himself in bracing his weight between his hands and then swinging into the seat. Kyle settled next to him, warm and comfortable.

They got buckled in, their work painstakingly approved by the teenaged ride manager, then Kyle turned to him, grinning. “I’m going to scream _a lot_.”

Alex found himself chuckling. “I’ll be ready.”

The ride jerked forward once, _hard_ and Alex clutched the front railing. Kyle was taking big breaths beside him, and he had to decide, fast, if he was going to endure it or let go.

He pried his hands off the rail and raised them up over his head, Kyle following him with a whoop a second later as they careened down the track into a dark tunnel. Alex’s stomach was in his throat when they hit daylight, foot tingling, face cold with the dry wind.

They went up and down a few small hills; then they came to a massive slope. 

“Oh yeah,” Kyle said, beating out a tempo on the hold bar in front of them, the coaster ratcheting them up the slope with reverberating jerks forward. He pointed to the walkway beside them. “See that? That’s where they’ll evacuate us if the ride breaks down.”

Alex whipped around, hands finding the grab bar again. “They do that?”

“Oh, totally,” Kyle said offhandedly, “These old wooden things? All the time.”

To Alex’s wide eyes he corrected: “It’s not going to happen today. You can hold tight this time if you’d rather though.”

Alex took his hands off the bar and folded his arms. 

“It’s not a competition, Alex,” Kyle said.

They were nearly at the peak and the wind was loud enough Kyle’s words were whipped out of his mouth as soon as he spoke. 

“Then what is it?” Alex shouted above the wind.

“Fun!” Kyle said.

They reached the peak and for a terrible, heart-stopping moment, he and Kyle were looking straight down a 100 foot drop. No parachute, no landing zone, just the careful hands of a teenaged ride worker and his faith in Kyle’s assessment of the roller coaster keeping him safe. Alex pressed his tongue to the top of his mouth, and as Kyle began to scream Alex pressed himself back against the seat, stabilizing himself as best he could. 

Then they were falling, wind screaming in their ears, bodies weightless then caught with the drag. There was one smaller hill, then another smaller one. They jerked around a curve, Alex falling against Kyle as the other man laughed and braced him, Alex making a face at him.

They went around a smaller curve then ground to a stop. Their lap bars popped forward and Alex levered himself out of the seat, feet feeling wobbly on the wooden floor. He tottered down the ramp, only stopping when he heard Kyle’s shout: “Wait!”

He turned back, only to see Kyle standing in front of a bank of monitors. He wandered back and then Kyle was pointing, laughing.

There, on the screen, was a picture of their cart. There was Kyle, mouth open wide and arms up. Then there was Alex, sunglasses on, arms folded, looking cool as a cucumber even as his hair flew back from his head and his clothes whipped around him.

“I’m 100% buying that,” Kyle said, getting out his wallet. 

“I didn’t know there was a picture,” Alex said, not sure what to think.

“Yep!” Kyle said, turning to the teller. “I’ll take two of those, both magnets, please.”

“Want to go again while it prints?” Alex nodded, feeling a warm churning in his stomach. “Is that ok?” Kyle checked with the teller. She nodded, black hair flopping over her forehead.

Alex led the way. He was going to try something on this round.

“So the magnets,” Kyle said. “I figured I’d put one on my fridge and we can put one on your fridge when you get your own place.”

Alex frowned. “How do you get an apartment? Like, I know how to rent a hotel room. That’s easy. But I’ve always lived in base housing.”

They moved forward as the folks in front of them got into the carts.

“Well, you’re active duty Air Force, so you have a housing stipend. Then you look on PadMapper or Craigslist or Aparments.com or whatever, look for what you like and what you can afford. Then you tour the apartments, apply for the space, put down first month and last month’s rent, a pet deposit if the landlord requires it. You might have to pay more or get someone to co-sign, since you don’t have credit. Then you sign a contract, which you should make sure someone else reviews who knows what they’re looking for so you don’t get screwed. Then you move in.”

“Oh,” Alex said. He wondered what it would be like to have a door he had a key to, a key only he had. Or maybe only him and a friend, someone he wanted to share space with. Maybe with a guest room so if someone needed a place to crash, he could let them. Could do what Kyle was doing for him for someone else.

Kyle let him think, nearly wriggling with excitement as the roller coaster began its rushing slide into the dark tunnel. Just like last time, raised his arms up high. But this time, as soon as his stomach went weightless, he began to shout.

He couldn’t do Kyle’s sustained screaming, but with each turn and whip around a corner, he whooped, shouted, hands in the air, body smacking against Kyle’s, just -- grinning wildly. Just enjoying it.

Alex paid for the second set of magnets, tracing his grinning mouth with a fingernail and keeping the little plastic disc in his palm the entire rest of the day.

\--

Kyle drove back, Alex watching the hills grow more yellow, watching as the sun set behind one set of mesas only to reemerge as they passed them. An hour into the three hour drive, Alex sighed, leaning his head against the window. 

“This next mission is going to be shit.”

Kyle cocked his head, “Is Doha so bad?”

“No, it’s not that -- it’s a portfolio mission.” Alex said.

“What does _that_ mean?”

“A portfolio mission? A mission I’m going to fail because there’s no way to succeed, and it goes in the portfolio the Colonel keeps in case I go out of line?”

“No way that is a real thing,” Kyle said, mouth twisting.

Alex frowned: “I’ve seen it. The USS Cole, Buddhas of Bamyan, 9/11 --”

Kyle’s voice was a choked whisper: “Your father blames you for 9/11?”

Alex’s voice was flat, strained but clear: “There’s a timeline where there were 19 attackers, not 12. I got 7 of them, but got pulled back before I could finish the job. After that, they moved their base to Turkmenistan and I never got within a 1000 miles of them again. That was my third mission.”

“That’s -- that’s _insane_ , Alex. That’s insane. You can’t possibly --”

Alex was talking over him. “Those are missions I physically couldn’t complete or they required skills I don’t have. Do you know the objective for the next mission?”

Kyle shook his head. 

Alex replied: “I’m supposed to warn Secretary Clinton about the Benghazi attack.”

Kyle froze, turning to look at him before whipping his head back to the road.

“That’s -- _what_?”

“Exactly!” Alex said, throwing his hands up: “I’m not a diplomat! I don’t have any _training._ Any _connections_. She’s speaking at Carnegie Mellon’s Doha campus February 15, 2010. I was there, was at a lecture on the other side of the Education City campus at Georgetown’s Qatar campus, so it’s, like, a 15 minute walk. But what am I supposed to _say_ ? How can I possibly convince her to, what? Argue for a Marine detachment? She didn’t do anything _wrong_.”

At this point, Alex’s voice was catching in his throat, hands clenched into fists. He forced his breathing down, forced his hands to unclench, his face to resume his neutral expression. “The point is, I’m supposed to fail. But it’s not a Kobayashi Maru -- there’s nothing for me to _learn_. _I don’t have any pride left for him to take_ , he just wants --” and Alex heard the defeat in his voice, felt it in his shoulders. “He just wants to remind me he’s in control.”

Kyle reached his hand over, wrapping a palm around Alex’s forearm where it lay as hard as wood on the armrest. He took a deep breath and then another until Alex mimicked him, breathing returning to normal as the last light of day faded around them.

“Ok,” Kyle said, jaw flexing. “Ok.” Kyle said again, bringing his hand back to the wheel. “Can I just say, that’s profoundly fucked up? You are _not_ to blame for -- for _any_ of that, Alex. Not a single incident. You aren’t -- you aren’t required to burn yourself to provide other people light. You just _aren’t._ ”

Alex gritted his teeth and looked to the side, shifting in his seat. “Unclear. Anyway, this mission is going to be shit. Not dangerous, there’s just -- no way to do it _right_. No one to _help_. Those intelligence officers, that ambassador, they’re not going to be safer because I asked the Secretary of State a question at a public forum.”

“Could it be -- could it be a political thing? Trying to get footage to embarrass her, alter the course of the election more in favor of a different candidate?”

Alex shook his head: “The Colonel wouldn’t do that.”

Kyle made a horrified, exasperated sound. “Jesse Manes would _blame you for 9/11_ but not try to fuck with a US election?”

“You might think my family doesn’t have a code, Kyle, but we do, and it’s the US Code of Military Justice. We don’t get involved in politics. Not ever.” His tone was hard and Kyle just shook his head, muttering to himself.

Then he said: “Just -- do your best and get home safe. That’s the best you can do.”

Alex looked out over the darkened desert: “It’s not going to be good enough.” He took a long pause. “Do you know what happened? That night in Libya?”

Kyle narrowed his eyes, seeming to think. “There was an attack on a US consulate and a -- an auxiliary base?”

Alex nodded: “The first US ambassador killed on post since 1979, two CIA officers and an intelligence officer. Their deaths emboldened the militias, hypnotized Americans, fucked-up our relationships in the region. But you know what I remember about it?”

“What?”

“Ahmed Shams. He was this 22 year old art student -- can you _imagine_ , being an art student in Libya in 2012? How much you had to _love_ art? How much you had to care about it, to keep studying it, under those kind of conditions?” Alex shook his head. “Anyway, he saw the IED blow-up the consulate wall, saw the attackers go in and set fire to it all. Those men, the kinds of men who led the attack, they run the streets, terrorizing people, harassing people when they try to go pray at their mosques, just, being fucking horrors of humans. Terrors. But this kid, this artist, he grabs his friends, he drags them _into the consulate_. They pull Ambassador Stevens out. No Americans were able to find them. These kids -- do you know what ‘Al-Shabab’ means?”

“It’s that militant group in Somalia, right?”

Alex gave a harsh laugh. “Fuck, I hate the American media sometimes.” He scrubbed his hands with his face. “It means ‘the youth.’ Just like ‘madrassa’ means ‘school’ and ‘jihad’ means ‘struggle.’ There’s just so much that’s fucked up --” he took a breath, “Anyway, young people, in the Middle East, they’re really conscious that they are this change generation, this pivotal generation. It’s something to be proud of, a big deal, to be a young person with ideals, someone who wants to work to better their world, their country, their street. So this group of youths, this shabab, they dive into the fire, plowing through the smoke, and they dig this random white man out. He’s an American, he’s hurt, barely breathing. It’s chaos -- the CIA didn’t go in for an hour after these kids, it was too hot in the street. But these kids go in, they get him. They try to find an ambulance, try to find police; nothing. They get one of their cars.”

Alex felt something like a fond smile moving across his face: “I’ve ridden in cars like the one I imagine they had. Total beater, painted and repainted, some piece of shit an oil contractor brought over and then left behind, bullet holes in the doors from stray strafings, but the most freaking excellent music in the CD player. Anyway, they pull this guy into one of their beaters and drive like crazy. It’s 10:30pm in Benghazi and they drive through smoke and bullets to get this man they don’t know to the hospital. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because it’s what _people_ do for each other. They get him there at 1am, and Benghazi isn’t a massive city, so that gives you a sense of how hard it was to get from place to place that night.”

“The thing is -- the hospital is controlled by the same militia who attacked the consulate. Maybe the kids knew that. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they hoped that doctors would do the right thing, no matter what. They bring this random white man in, and he’s still barely breathing, they got him out when no one else did. They drove him themselves when no one else would come for him. And they get him to this hospital, get him to this doctor. Dr. Ziad Abu Zeid. This man, in the middle of a militia controlled hospital, maybe he knew there had been an attack on the US consulate; maybe not. Maybe he knew who he had under his hands; maybe not. But this man gives Ambassador Stevens CPR for 90 minutes.”

“Jesus,” Kyle whispered. “Cut-off is 15.”

“No shit,” Alex said, “This man, this doctor, fights for 90 minutes to save Ambassador Stevens. But he’d inhaled too much smoke. He dies. They find someone to drive him to the airport, to US custody. It’s chaos, utter madness everywhere, drones flying in, CIA flying in from Tripoli -- they bribed this pilot $30,000 and forced him to fly them to Benghazi in the middle of the night. And someone, a Libyan doctor maybe, the kids maybe, the government officers who realized the fuck-up that had happened that night, they take Ambassador Stevens’ body, and they drive him to the airport. Back to his people.”

The night was quiet, the sound of the road rushing under their wheels slowly filling the cab.

“Those kids, that doctor, they gave Ambassador Stevens the best death they could. They did the best they could, for this person who they could easily have chosen to hate. Chosen to hurt. But they didn’t.”

He took a deep breath. “And to someone like my father, none of that matters. They’re the enemy because they don’t wear our flag. Anyone who isn’t like us, isn’t like _him,_ is a threat. It doesn’t matter how much they risk for us. How they deserve safety and freedom as much as anyone else. His death, the death of the men who tried to help him, they’re just pawns in the Colonel's game. Just another tool in his kit, trying to make a point about power.”

“So what would you do?” Kyle asked.

Alex shook his head. “I’d put a lock on the doors to the arms warehouses.”

“What?” Kyle half-laughed.

“The US, our allies, we brought a ton of weapons into the civil war. Qaddafi had these stockpiles everywhere. People without guns kill a lot fewer people than people with guns. I’ve searched my timeline, tried to find a time and place I could get that idea to the right person, I would push as hard as I could to get it. But starting in 2011, I was back here. Doing Time Agency work. No more trips to the Middle East. Right as the Arab Spring was starting, I was back here, training and dragging myself all over creation, trying to fix the _last_ 20 years of mistakes in the region.”

He took a deep breath. “Maybe someone else will get it. Maybe we’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll have another timeline in my head and you’ll have always known that Benghazi was a singular example of American bravery and Libyan courage.”

His smile was not a nice one: “But I doubt that will be a priority under the Colonel.”

Kyle let that rest, hands steady on the wheel as they watched the stars come out.

\--

Just outside of Roswell, Kyle pulled over. There was a big sign beside the road. Alex peered up at it, unable to read the cowboy-script.

“Do you know where this is?” Kyle asked, wandering over to a split-rail fence. Alex shook his head, watching as a semi-truck barreled down the highway beside where they’d pulled over.

“It’s Foster’s Ranch, where they found the crashed ship 71 years ago.”

Alex felt his heart kick, looking out over the featureless black of the landscape. He reached under his thick t-shirt, feeling the hard lump of alien tech under his skin.

Kyle took a breath. “You said you wanted to try and help find the kid’s family.”

Alex leaned against the fence: “I don’t really know where to start.”

“I do.” Kyle said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

Alex clenched his jaw, the light feeling of the day seeping away from him.

“Back in the ‘90s, there were aliens, still free. But they got rounded-up. Sent to Caulfield. There --” and he must have seen the stricken look on Alex’s face: “No kids. No one our age. Michael, wherever he is, he didn’t get caught-up in it. And neither did those other two kids. But if you want to find them, the people who would know, the people who raised him after he left your Mom’s, they’re in there.”

Alex’s chest was tight, like there was a boot against it, a hand across his mouth: “I can’t go back there, if I go there, I’ll draw attention, he’ll -- Kyle, he’ll _hurt_ them.”

Alex didn’t think Kyle pitied him. He knew it was dumb he didn’t know how to set-up a bank account, get an apartment. But Kyle just treated all of those things like inconveniences, little roadbumps on the path to a new life Alex couldn’t really envision but that his friend seemed to see for him.

But this, this was a look of pure, uncut pity.

“Alex, he’s already hurting them. And you know it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I have no idea the layout of the Rattler, but if you followed the physics of that scene, you have just experienced the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalks 1924-era wooden roller coaster. I had no idea I had its layout memorized until I wrote this scene, but that’s what growing up in the Bay Area will do to a girl.
> 
> The story about Benghazi is based on contemporaneous press accounts. I've got a bunch of sourcing if anyone wants to dive into it, but it's dark stuff.


	5. Somebody's Heine is crowding my icebox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some much lighter stuff this chapter.

Alex opened his eyes in one of Georgetown-Qatar Campus’s classrooms, the light from the timestream fading from his chest by the second. He stretched out his shoulders as he levered himself to standing. On the wall was a 10’ tall map; he seemed to remember hearing that every undergraduate in their School of Foreign Service had to memorize the world map to pass their first year. He checked his watch; it was 2pm. Secretary Clinton’s talk was at 3pm. He moved to brush off his pants, but realized his grad student costume was as clean as it had been when he stepped into the time sphere that morning. The cleaning staff at Education City were top-notch.

He slipped out of the classroom and aimed for daylight.

The campus was like no other college campus he’d ever seen. Wide, comfortable plazas with desert-friendly plants and artificial streams trickling between rounded stones kept the outdoor areas cool and breezy under the arcing blue steel of a Gulf spring sky. Five American universities boasted campuses providing only a few majors each here: Carnegie Mellon for Computer Science, Information Systems and Business; Northwestern University for Journalism and Media Relations; Virginia Commonwealth University for Graphic Design and Interior Design; Cornell for Medical School; Georgetown for Foreign Service and International Relations; Texas A&M for Engineering.

Alex strode across the pale stone of the plaza towards the mesa-red of the shared Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern building. He remembered thinking, the first time he’d been to their Doha campus, how much the architecture reminded him of the American Southwest. It made sense: the architects were two Mexican brothers, building in the Pueblo Indian style. Thick walls; high, thin windows; lots of room for air to move; water features running throughout the building to keep the temperature cool in an area where the temperatures could regularly top 43C during the school year. If he remembered correctly, the campus basically shut down in the summers.

There were a lot of different kinds of college students wandering around the campus. He caught the bright dresses and short skirts of Druze women, Khaleegi women in long black abayas for women and Khaleegi men in bright white thobes, plus jeans and beanies and button-up shirts, niqabs and turban-style head coverings mixing with ponytails and pixie haircuts. He’d been reminded by his briefing that there were modesty laws in Qatar, but they were lightly enforced on campus; as long as your arms and legs were mostly covered, you were mostly fine.

He was wearing a navy blue henley and black skinny jeans with comfortable boots and a sturdy leather belt. It was the most comfortable he’d been on a mission in years; but it echoed inside of him, the knowledge that this was inherently a failure from the start.

He’d been given his approach by the Time Analysts. He would pretend to be a visiting grad student from Texas A&M. He would submit a written question about security at the consular office in Benghazi during the Q&A directly after Secretary Clinton’s speech. He would try to get called on, telling the staff that he would be willing to ask the question in either Arabic or English. Given that the talk was being broadcast on Al-Jazeera with Abderrahim Foukara interviewing, the Time Analyst predicted he would have a preference for questioners who could translate their own questions. 

The question Alex had been given had been worded in such a way that it would be forwarded to the Diplomatic Security Services. From there, the Time Analysts predicted, it would work its way into heightening a security assessment for the Benghazi consulate. A security assessment they hoped would survive the mass-reevaluation of American diplomatic resource allocation in the region post-Arab Spring. 

They’d actually used the word ‘hoped.’ _It’s never good when even the Analysts aren't confident in their predictions,_ Alex thought.

There was a metal detector at the massive glass doors of the building; the guards didn’t blink at Alex as he worked his way through.

Alex froze in the entryway, staring at what in any other building would have been an administrative desk. It _was_ \-- in form. A big white-topped circle, in the middle of the entrance to the building.

But instead of a bored student worker or even more bored administrative assistant, the desk was empty except for a LCD monitor raised to eye height above the body of a mannequin in western formal dress, with a keyboard in front of it. On the screen was a blue woman’s face and below it, in Arabic and English, it read: “Welcome. Ask me a question.”

He checked his watch; he still had 45 minutes until the presentation would start, and another 30 minutes after that until the Q&A period. He had a moment to play with an AI.

Switching the keyboard to Arabic, he typed, using the feminine form of the pronoun: “Hello, what’s your name?”

“My name is Hala. How are you?” 

She replied using the female form of 'you.' Alex snickered. He tried a few more questions, including, “I am a man, how do I get to the computer lab?”

She still replied using the feminine form of the you verb.

“It’s your clothes,” came a voice over his shoulder. Alex started, looking around. A young woman wearing an abaya and a niqab across her face was standing to the side. Her English had a Texan accent.

“Hmm?” He asked.

The woman stepped closer, indicating his clothes with a waved finger. Her nail was long and hot pink with a rhinestone just off the center of the tip.

“The team that’s working on her used a color sensor to determine gender.” Her eyes crinkled behind her niqab and Alex could tell she was grinning. “They figured, since Qatari men usually wear white thobes and Qatari women usually wear black abayas, she should use feminine for anyone in black and masculine for anyone in white.”

Alex chuckled, and she joined him. “It must be a surprise to the western business men in their black suits.” 

The woman made a derisive sound: “Like they speak a word of Arabic. She’ll stick to whatever language you start out in.”

“Still,” Alex said. “It would be better to let people tell her their genders themselves.”

“Agreed,” she said. She looked him over again. “You’re here for the speech?”

He nodded. Another crinkle in her eyes: “Make sure to bring a piece of paper when you go to the bathrooms.”

It was such a non sequitur, Alex laughed: “What?”

The woman shook her head. “All of the bathrooms have sensors to turn on the water. They were all calibrated by men in white clothes; the sensors don’t go off for dark colors. So,” she reached into the pocket of her abaya, pulling out a crumpled piece of white binder paper, covered in a scattering of calculus symbols: “Make sure to bring your piece of paper.” She began to walk away. “As one honorary woman to another.”

Alex laughed outright as she waved a lazy hand to him and headed towards the seating area. 

He typed a quick: “Nice to meet you, goodbye,” to the AI and wandered through the high, cool hallway to the large amphitheater at the heart of the building.

There were black plastic and silver steel chairs set-up on a dozen levels of pale stone steps. Alex was a little disappointed; he’d seen pictures of this area before. It was usually covered in colorful red pillows, from the size usually found as couch cushions to throw pillows. It was called The Majlis, which was both a meeting space and the word often used in the region for parliaments.

He found a seat in the back and looked around the room. The seats were filling up, when something caught his attention. A few seats over, one young man had his arm draped comfortably around the shoulders of another. A few steps down from then, two young women were holding hands.

Something uncoiled in Alex’s chest.

Queerness of all flavors was illegal in Qatar, but the gender norms were much, much looser. Men could hold hands, cuddle with each other, kiss each other’s cheeks, and it was seen as nothing but affection. It wasn’t something he’d gotten to experience more than a few times, but he’d always envied men in the Middle East’s lack of skin hunger, the soft way they were allowed to be with each other. There was a memory, a boy he’d held hands with in Bahrain; but he locked it away long before he could hear the echo of screams.

An aide passed a packet of yellow question cards; Alex took the stack by the edges and passed it along to the two young men cuddling on the chairs down from him.

He carefully wrote out his question in English and Arabic, passed it along, and waited.

The talk was quick-paced, funny, organized and brilliant. He wasn’t allowed to take political stands as an officer in the Air Force, but he knew which way he’d voted in 2016.

During the Q&A, his question wasn’t selected.

And then it was over. The Secretary left, the media packed up, and the students began to trickle back to their classes. And Alex had 22.5 hours left in Doha and nothing to do.

He had wandered down a quiet side hallway and was vaguely thinking of going back to the Starbucks in the Georgetown building to get some ridiculously fancy tea before heading to downtown to get a room at one of the high rise hotels when someone caught his arm --

He swung around on his whole leg, already making a fist when the man took a big step back, hands up. 

“Hey,” he said.

He was -- Alex tried to be objective and not use terms like _David in living marble_ or _lickable_ inside his own head. The man was tan. He had very tightly-cropped hair just showing a bit of curl. He had amber eyes. He was wearing a long-sleeved pale blue shirt. He was grinning at Alex like he knew a secret.

“Hi?” Alex said, cursing himself out for sounding breathless, for the way he wavered towards him.

The man looked him over, connecting with his eyes for a long moment. He was looking for something, but Alex had no idea what it was. Then he leaned back against the white-stone pillar. “How’d you like the talk?”

“I liked what she had to say about Americans learning more about Islamic culture.” Alex said, looking at the man with confusion all over his face. _Did I do something to get made?_

“I was a fan of how hard she emphasized the role of STEM in increasing gender equality, but I’m biased.” He stuck out his hand: “I’m Dr Guerin. Nice to meet you.”

Alex reached out, fingers slipping light across his palm before gripping his hand tightly. 

“I’m Alex -- Alex Manes.”

He had callouses, real ones, striped across the base of his palm. Alex wanted to know what kind of work he did to get those callouses; wanted to hold onto them for much longer than was socially acceptable.

He dropped Dr Guerin’s hand, the heat of it sticking with him, seeming to trickle through his skin down into his arteries, warmth working its unstoppable way to his heart.

“I’m doing my post-doc here, teaching some computer science and robotics classes. You’re a grad student?”

“What?” Alex said, then: “Yeah, Mechanical Engineering. Texas A&M.”

“Go Aggies,” Dr Guerin said, in a teasing voice. He lowered his tone, looking around conspiratorially before leaning forward, so close Alex could smell the engine grease on his clothes. “Though there’s nothing quite like being an Aggie here, where no one understands, much less watches, American college ball.”

“I’m more of a combat sports guy myself,” Alex breathed, transfixed by the glimmer in Dr Guerin’s eye. He tried to shake himself out of it. “What, no Tartan pride? You’re at Carnegie Mellon, right?”

“What -- ‘Go Scotty Dogs’”? Dr Guerin smirked. “We’re terrible at sports. But our robots win all the major competitions; I’ll take self-driving cars over football scars any day.”

Alex gave him a half smile. 

Dr Guerin settled back on his heels a little. “I’m done with my classes for the day and I’m heading down to my lab. Unless you’ve got something else on, want to come meet my snake robot?”

Alex laughed, blurting out before he could stop himself: “Does that line actually work?”

Dr Guerin bit his tongue, before looking up at him. “I don’t know -- does it?”

And Alex -- he felt cold. It -- it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t remotely safe. His 20-year-old self was just on the other side of campus. His _father_ was at Al Udeid base, could come into the city at any time. This man, he looked about 20 himself, now Alex had spent some serious time looking at him. 

“I -- I don’t think I can.”

The man muttered: “Wow, that far back then. Ok.” He took a breath, pulling out his phone. “I promise it’s not a line. I’m _actually_ working on a snake-like robot. It can climb into buildings; I’m trying to teach it to disable IEDs.”

Alex blinked. “It could ride the pipes, up and down, through the walls?’

“Yes!” Dr Guerin said, grinning. He pulled up a video, and sure enough, there was a snake robot. “Search and rescue, infiltration, exfiltration -- tons of options.” Then his smile got a little bashful. “Once I get it working. Maybe you could take a look?”

Alex thought of his plan for the day -- a tea (by himself), a taxi ride into downtown (by himself), a hotel room looking over the glittering city (by himself). He could book a hotel just as well after a few hours learning more about advanced robotics as well as he could now. _It might just be fun._

“Why not. Lead on.”

\--

Dr Guerin’s lab was a chaotic mess. It was in the back of the building, away from the glittering fountains and through a hallway made narrow by filing cabinets. It was a big open room with lab tables scattered around it. There were clear storage boxes stacked earthquake-hazard high against the wall, and at least 3 snake robot prototypes laid out across the floor, gently coiled around pipes of differing diameters. Alex hovered in the doorway as Dr Guerin flipped the lights on and scavenged for a chair to clear.

“The current problem,” he said, picking one up by the scruff of its steely neck and gently laying in between Alex’s palms, “Is how to make it grip.”

Alex frowned, rolling the rattlesnake sized body made of interlinked metal joints together. It had full 360 movement from each joint, but Alex could see how the slick steel would do absolutely nothing on a pole.

“I mean, you’ve thought of this, but some kind of rubber attachments?”

Dr Guerin nodded. “Yeah, I’ve thought of it.” He grinned, the cocky smile making Alex’s heart warm. “I didn’t get my PhD at 20 for nothing; I’m pretty good at this stuff.”

That ruled him out for anything other than some friendly getting-to-know you banter, but it would be nice to talk to someone other than Kyle for a few hours.

“I bet you aced humble class too.”

“Straight As, baby.”

Alex rolled his eyes. Dr Guerin checked the door, then said: “Pretty much the only straight thing about me.”

And Alex was prepared: “Sorry to disappoint, but you don’t pass the age difference rule. Even if I wanted to risk a prison sentence and deportation, half my age plus 7 years is 21 -- you missed the cutoff.”

Dr Guerin narrowed his eyes, clearly considering arguing his case. Then he shook his head and muttered: “Stubborn.”

Alex smiled: “It’s pretty much my one good trait.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true.” Dr Guerin said, looking him up and down. Then he shook his head.

“So, how long are you in town for?”

Alex checked his phone: 22 more hours. “I’ve got a flight through Heathrow tomorrow evening.”

Dr Guerin tilted his head: “Any plans?”

Alex cribbed from his cover: “None to speak of -- I did my interviews with principal investigators yesterday and this morning. I was going to take a bit of time to see the sights.”

“Yeah?” Dr Guerin asked. “Want someone to show you around?”

Alex tilted his hip against the door, getting some of the pressure off his stump. “Are you an old Doha hand?”

“I could show you a few things.”

Alex narrows his eyes: “Like what?”

“Ever had Yemeni honey?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lived in Education City during this period this chapter is set and I was at Secretary Clinton’s talk, so thanks for indulging my memories of a weird, fascinating place.
> 
> Here is the snake robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFt8wDuExdk
> 
> And yes, someone did try to pick me up once by offering to show me his snake robot. I accepted, went to the snake robot lab with him, played with the bomb detecting snake robot, then gently let him know I was there for the robots.


	6. Something is bubbling behind my back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is extremely fluffy. Please enjoy.

Alex cinched his arm tighter around Dr Guerin’s waist, muttering into his ear: “You trying to break the sound barrier there, Doc?” as the motorcycle swooped and swerved through Monday afternoon traffic on the way into Doha.

All he heard in response was laughter, carried to him, bright and free over the desert air.

As they flew through the flat sand between Education City and downtown, Alex wondered when, exactly, he’d lost his mind. Was it when Dr Guerin had offered to show him the lab? When Dr Guerin had flirted and he’d flirted back, for the first time he could remember doing outside of a mission? When Dr Guerin had offered to drive them to his favorite honey seller in the Souq Waqif traditional market and then revealed not the standard Range Rover or cast-off Hyundai, but an electric blue sport bike?

 _No_ , Alex thought darkly, _It was definitely when he asked if I wanted to see his robot snake and I said yes._

_I’m so fucked._

As they worked their way into the city, Alex tried to keep the right amount of distance between their bodies. Men rode together on bikes all the time here, and there was no way to do it safely but by holding on. Did he _need_ to be counting Dr Guerin’s breaths? Did he _need_ to be matching each inhale to his? He leaned into the curve of a roundabout just as Dr Guerin took them deep into it, thighs tight on the bike and brain desperately conjugating future-tense verbs in Arabic to distract him from the feel of it.

“You’re a natural,” he heard the other man say.

“Not my first time on a bike,” Alex said, Dr Guerin would blame the wind for his breathlessness.

Alex’s skin felt two sizes too small and his heart three sizes too big, pounding in his throat and his wrists, inner thighs and the arch of his foot. 

_So, very, very fucked._

He hoped Dr Guerin would just ignore this -- this rogue attraction, this 3am ambush of a crush, and not light into him, not taunt him with it. Even if Dr Guerin respected the boundary Alex had set without him having to reinforce the battlements, Alex had no idea what to do here. Could he -- was it ok to _enjoy_ the feeling of the other man in his arms? Was it alright to imagine doing something about it, in a few years when Dr Guerin was older and Alex was, oh, about 200% less fucked up? Maybe had his own place? He wouldn’t mind living in Doha again, or wherever Dr Guerin ended up. He sure as shit hoped so, because his brain was already deep into fantasies of taking Dr Guerin to play pool at the Wild Pony and ride the Rattler roller coaster and explore Foster Ranch.

They skirted downtown then the bike slowed down, the wind quieting in Alex’s ears, turning into a gravel parking lot beside the low rise of the souq. Dr Guerin parked between a Mercedes and a BMW, their sweaty, white-shirted drivers leaning against their hoods and smoking. He kicked the stand down and slipped the key from the ignition before swinging his leg off. He reached a hand out to steady Alex’s elbow and Alex shied away, glancing over at the drivers.

Dr Guerin dropped his hand, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

“I’ve got to check-in with my little ladies, then I’ll take you to get the best honey in Doha.”

“Ladies?”

Alex as Dr Guerin bounded around one of the limos, nodding to the driver before crouching on the ground, clucking his tongue.

Alex was about to start looking for an exit route when a cluster of undersized white cats crept out from under the limousine. The driver let a few pieces of cat food tumble from his hand, and they hurried out a little faster.

“How’re my little beauties?” Dr Guerin coo-ed, grinning eye-contact up at the driver who gave him a half-smile back. He offered the back of his hand to the bravest cat to smell before risking a pat on the head. One of them snapped at him and then immediately presented her side for pats, which he graciously gave from a respectful distance.

Alex heard him say something like, “Can Laila and Keghani come next week? Plans changed.”

“I’ll check, but it’s their third, so I don’t think it’s a problem. Probably still healing up.”

Alex frowned but kept his gaze away so he wouldn’t be caught eavesdropping. He knelt using the souq wall for support, offering his hand. The smallest of the cats, barely out of teen-hood, crept closer to him. She smelled his fingers, found no food, and hustled back to the pack. Alex appreciated her caution. He was reaching for the wall to pull himself up again when Dr Guerin’s hand entered his field of view, palm-up.

“It doesn’t hurt anyone to accept help when it’s freely offered,” Dr Guerin murmured, golden eyes warm in the afternoon sun. Alex wanted to argue, wanted to say something about weakness and practice and long-formed habit; but the words were fuzzy in his mouth. Instead he gave Dr Guerin a little of his weight as he pulled himself to standing.

Dr Guerin snagged his sleeve and gently tugged him towards the entrance to the souq: “It’s this way.”

Alex didn’t get a chance to ask about the conversation with the driver.

There weren’t many people in the market, most stores having gently closed for the hottest part of the day. But Alex appreciated the wooden rafters that bridged the narrow corridors of the traditional market, keeping the worst of the heat off and letting the smells of cumin and pepper and curry powders and birds and cats and human bodies fill the air. He preferred these spaces to any mall he’d ever set foot in.

Dr Guerin wove through the shadowed and deserted walkways of the souq, seeming to know every corner, every pass-through and unmarked corridor.

“Is this -- “ Alex frowned, forcing the other man to stop or let go of his arm; Dr Guerin stopped. Alex wrapped his knuckles against the wall between two open closed storefronts: “Is this poured concrete?”

Dr Guerin cracked a laugh, “Yeah, the current Sheikh’s uncle had the original souq bulldozed in the ‘90s, had this Disney-fied nonsense built instead.” He traced a hand down the wall. “It’s a weird mix here: it’s an actual souq that actual people use, Qataris and the 81% of people who live here who aren’t Qatari. It’s not a potemkin village or anything. But it’s also -- simplified. Smoothed out.”

“I went to one like that, in Abuja.”

“Nigeria?” Dr Guerin asked.

“Yeah -- they have this crafts market with grass roofed buildings. Right in the middle of this modern city -- the whole capital was planned by Japanese architects in the ‘80s. The craft market is like 10 minutes from a mall. And,” he ran his fingers over the wall, “It’s not like there aren’t millions of Nigerians living in grass roofed huts, but there’s far more in the cities -- 40 million people live in Lagos alone. But they made this place, with those aesthetics -- I don’t know. For tourists or for Nigerians who wanted to feel closer to their village roots or something else. I never quite got it.”

“Well,” Dr Guerin said, “Before you go thinking this place is much better, you know there’s a Häagen-Dazs here?”

“ _No_ ,” Alex said, horrified. 

“Yep,” Dr Guerin grinned. “Right at the edge of the souq.”

“That’s --” Alex shook his head. “Like, I’ve started to appreciate ice cream more lately, but it just seems so _incongruous_.”

Dr Guerin shrugged, eyes smiling: “Welcome to Doha.”

Alex laughed and let him pull him along to the far corner to the souq.

Their shoulders pressed together as they stepped into the small shop, trinkets and hand carved wooden statues, spices and small metal bowls alternately dusty and well-polished on the gently crooked wooden shelves.

“Ahlan wa sahlan,” Alex greeted him reflexively and the man tending the shop’s eyes lit up.

“Ahlan. Kaief halak?” The man had a thickly lined face and wore an off-white thobe with a grey-and-white kiffeya.

Alex glanced at Dr Guerin before replying, “Tamam, al-hamdu l’Allah. Wa inta?”

“Al-hamdu l’Allah.”

Dr Guerin tilted his head: “What’s that mean?”

Alex smiled a little bit at the shop owner and said in a low voice: “We did a regular greeting in the Yemeni dialect, then he asked how I was doing, and I said I’m well, God willing.”

The shop owner came from behind his glass-fronted cases to offer his hand to Alex, who shook it firmly. He asked in thickly accented English: “When were you in Yemen?”

And Alex froze, glancing over at Dr Guerin; but he didn’t see surprise or worry on his face, the way most Americans looked when they heard Alex had spent time in the Middle East. If anything, he looked interested.

Alex turned back to the shopkeeper: “I haven’t gone yet, but my Arabic teacher in college was Yemeni, so I picked up a bit. He was from Sana’a,” he said, naming the capital.

He turned a smile to Dr Guerin, the shop owner matching it: “It’s the only national capital in the world built in the mouth of an extinct volcano. The mountains there are like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Sounds gorgeous. I might head there after my contract is up next year.”

Alex looked to the side, keeping his memories of Yemen in 2011 to himself. He turned to the shop owner, wondering if he’d lived through the civil war, if he was hosting a dozen family members who fled it, feeding them from the profits of this store 7 years in the future.

He gave him a smile, trying to focus on him as he was in this moment, right now: “My friend says you have the best honey in Doha.”

“In the whole Middle East!” The man said, and then he and Dr Guerin fell into the easy rhythm of a souq, the teasing and bragging, the negotiating and exaggeration and storytelling. They left with a plastic bag jingling with five jars of honey and a small hand carved wooden map of Yemen.

“No souvenirs for you?” Dr Guerin asked as he slipped the wooden map into his back pocket.

Alex shook his head: “I move around a lot, so I try not to get too much stuff.” He gave a wry smile: “If I can’t carry it in my hands, I’m probably not going to own it.”

Dr Guerin nodded, a thoughtful look coming over his face. “Want to get something to eat?”

“Sure.”

“What’re you feeling like?”

 _Sitting down_ , he thought, and immediately pushed the thought down, a flush of shame moving from his cheeks to his chest. Then a voice inside that sounded obnoxiously like Kyle nudged him; he wondered what would happen if he told Dr Guerin about his leg. A voice that sounded a lot more like Flint whispered _Maybe he’ll be an asshole about it and you can drop this stupid fixation._

“Is there someplace we can sit?” He leaned down and wrapped the metal of his prosthetic. “I’m not as mobile as I used to be.”

But Dr Guerin didn’t stare, didn’t look shocked, didn’t fucking _thank him for his service_ or whatever. He just met his eyes and nodded and said: “Sure, I know just the place.”

\--

“I thought you were going to drag me to one of those fancy places downtown where they serve like 15 kinds of chocolate,” Alex said, gleefully stuffing his face with the local sourdough crépe stuffed with gooey cheese off paper plates as they sat on the steps of one of the small open squares in the middle of the souq. Beside them, the woman who sold them the crépes was sitting cross-legged in front of a brazier with a flat cast-iron plate on top of it, the length of Alex’s forearm. She took a handful of the dough and rolled it around the smoking plate, then immediately began nudging it up as it cooked with a wooden spoon, keeping it from sticking. Then she slapped a heaving stack of sliced cheese into the middle, folded it into a tube, and plated it for the next person in line. 

“You don’t strike me as a fancy hotels kind of guy,” Dr Guerin said, pressing his shoulder against Alex’s. “More a tattoos and motorcycles kind of guy.”

Alex shook his head, voice low: “I don’t have any tattoos.”

“What?” Dr Guerin said, dropping his crepe on the paper plate in his lap, voice incredulous. “What?” He repeated again.

Alex smiled, surprised at his reaction: “It’s illegal here, and in a lot of places. I just never had the opportunity.”

“Oh,” Dr Guerin said. “Oh!” He turned, face close enough Alex could see the gold flecks in the amber of his eyes. “If you could get one, what would it be?”

Alex frowned, picking at a bit of crunchy cheese off the edge of his crépe. “Maybe a constellation? A -- a friend of mine had a big map of the stars on his wall. There’s something so big about the sky, that makes me feel massive and tiny, all at the same time.”

“You ever seen a UV tattoo?”

“No?”

Dr Guerin pulled out his phone, searching on the creaky QTel LTE and swiping for a second before showing Alex a picture of a dark skinned arm with a glowing alien head in the middle of it, phosphorescing under blacklight.

Alex felt a smile curl: “That’s a pretty good way around the prohibition on tattoos here.”

“Yeah, there’s not a lot of haunted houses or raves in Doha, and if you keep your sleeves long, even if you get caught in some random store’s bizarre lighting choices, no one will know.” He paused. “Unless you want them to.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Alex said, taking another bite.

“You want to get one?” Dr Guerin asked, words coming out in a rush. “With me? Tonight?”

“I -- what?” Alex said, mouth full.

“You’re not doing anything else, I’ve got a tattoo machine at my place -- that’s what that conversation with Mr Kerala was about. The driver with the cats?” Alex nodded, something unloosening in his chest that Dr Guerin was explaining what that had been about. “The family he drives for, they’re Armenian, living here the last 15 years since their Dad works at Qatar Gas. But the daughters, Keghani and Laila, they’re into ink, they liked the clubs when they were at school in London. But don’t have anyplace legal to get it here. They run a fashion boutique here in the souq, so Mr Kerala is here most days. They tell their friends, so I’ve got a nice little side gig. I’ve got a little set-up at my place in the professors' compound. All sterile, all clean.” He flashed him a smirk, gesturing to the paper plates: “How else could I afford such luxury?”

“Is it safe for you -- I mean, you could get deported.”

Dr Guerin shrugged: “I pay for a plane ticket home, someone else does my classes for the semester, I get another grad position. It’s a white collar issue, for me. I’ve got a safety net. Deportation is a lot scarier for guys like Mr Kerala. He draws in 7 times as much as a driver here as he did back home, supports a big family that way. That’s why we only communicate in-person.”

“I know tattooing is illegal, but is like, accessory to tattooing a crime here too?”

Dr Guerin frowned a little, looking around. “It’s not really about laws here. It’s about what someone powerful likes or doesn’t like.”

Alex felt that, in his chest, like a heavy weight. “I know what that’s like.”

Dr Guerin finished his last bite and dusted his hands off, offering to take Alex’s plate while he stood up.

“Want to get some Häagen-Dazs and go back to my place?”

Alex looked at the sky; the spring sun was dimming in the distance, turning the sky a flood of pink and orange with flickers and highlights of gold.

“I should get a room,” he said softly.

“Not for nothing, but I’ve got 3 guest rooms at my place.”

At Alex’s raised eyebrows he raised his hands. “Hey, all of the houses on the compound are the same and assume a professor with a full family. Me, myself, and I only need so much space. They’ve got locks on the doors, I’m not -- it’s a friendly offer. One geek to another.” He gave him a softly teasing smile: “Unless you were looking forward to the buffet at the Sheraton.”

“No, I --” he started, then looked around the market, trying to think what he wanted to say. Dr Guerin jiggled his foot, but otherwise seemed to be trying to keep still, to let him think. Alex looked at the woman cooking crépes, the shopkeepers. On the other side of the square, there were two men lounging together on the steps, legs intertwined, one of their heads on the other’s shoulder as they looked at something on one of their phones. A group of women in all black abayas were walking together, laughing loud, voices bright as bells. He took a breath, and the smells of cooking, of spices, of bodies and animals and the desert around them filtered through, and there was a feeling in his chest like a struck bell, like something cracking, and something else coming out. Something soft and unprotected and new.

“As long as it’s a friendly offer, I’m happy to head to yours. Can I cover your gas?”

“Sure, all $10 of it,” he grinned, standing up and offering Alex a hand.

Alex didn’t hesitate to grab it, letting Dr Guerin have enough of his weight that if he’d let go, Alex would have fallen back.

He didn’t let go.

Alex felt his smile was a little too big for the situation, but he couldn’t help it: “Benefits of being in the Gulf.”

\--

The ride back to Dr Guerin’s place was a little more sedate, but not much. The food sat warm and easy in Alex’s stomach, that same wrung-bell feeling echoing through him.

Dr Guerin’s house was in the middle of a square mile of identical two-story white houses, with identical front steps, identical garages, identical windows and identical doors. On the way in, they’d driven through another square mile of construction of what Alex could see becoming another compound of perfectly identical houses. It gave him the creeps.

Dr Guerin pressed a button on his key and his garage opened up, the space divided into a curtained-off area and a bike maintenance area.

As the door went down and Alex took off his helmet, he tilted his head to the curtain. “That your black market tattoo shop?”

Dr Guerin grinned, twitching aside the pale blue curtain to show a tattoo chair and a carefully organized idea of inks, tattoo guns, and medical supplies.

“Want to see mine?” He asked, rolling up his sleeve.

Alex felt his heart flip, but Dr Guerin was already reaching for a handheld blacklight flashlight. He held his forearm out -- it looked clean with some kind of raised-skin pattern near his elbow, but no color. Then he flicked it on and --

Alex burst out laughing. There was a cartoon flying saucer on his forearm with a little green man popping his head out the side. It was done in greens, pinks, and purples. Dr Guerin flipped off the light and his skin went back to normal.

“Of all the side hustles to have, what made you think of tattooing?” Alex asked, fingers itching to feel the skin he now knew hid the tattoo. He put his hands in his back pockets.

Dr Guerin’s smile was warm and a little sad. “A friend of mine had one, so I looked up how it was done. It’s not any harder than usual tattooing and when I was packing up to come here, I figured it might --” He blew a big breath out, leaning on the back of the chair. “It’s -- it’s hard, living someplace like this sometimes. A lot of rules, a lot of restrictions. I’m not great at rules and even worse at authority. So I figure I can either plan to break some and do it in the way least likely to fuck-up my life, or just find out along with everyone else what I do when I can’t take it anymore.”

“A pressure valve,” Alex said.

Dr Guerin nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, exactly that.” He looked down. “I know I came on strong earlier. If you don’t want a tattoo, obviously --”

Alex reached out, putting his fingertips just on the hot skin over Dr Guerin’s forearm: “I’d like to get the stars, could you do the Antares cluster? It’s in the Scorpio constellation, but I’m not really into astrology.”

Dr Guerin choked and caught himself, stepping back to pull out his phone. He pulled up a Google image search of the Scorpio.

“Yeah, like that.”

“Sure,” Dr Guerin said. “Where do you want it?”

Alex thought, then turned his wrist over, where the thick band of his watch lay close against his skin. “Can you put it under here? Maybe then with a bandage over it? I’d not want it to be visible if I’m wearing the watch.”

“No problem. Here, take a load off while I get set-up.”

Alex eased himself down into the chair, the soft leather of it fitting his body well. It was nice to get his weight off his prosthetic for a few minutes. He hadn’t brought crutches, so it would just be kind of a pain to get around. The value of going to a hotel is he could get an accessible room, if they had one; he glanced over at Dr Guerin where he was prepping the needle and the tracing paper. _There were other benefits to staying here._

“Do you know how this all works?” Dr Guerin asked, swiveling on his stool. Alex nodded: “You put the design on my skin, I tell you I like it, then you put the ink in.”

“It’s going to hurt.”

Alex laughed, and it sounded older than he’d felt all day. “What worth having doesn’t hurt?”

Dr Guerin paused, looking up at him. “Life doesn’t have to hurt, Alex.”

Alex shook his head. “Not in my experience.”

Dr Guerin took a big breath. “Sounds like you need some more positive experiences then.”

Alex smiled a little: “Today was a good one. Thanks for showing me around.”

“Anytime, Alex,” Dr Guerin said. 

They settled into quiet as he traced the marks over Alex’s skin, the desert cool creeping in through under the garage door, pulling the heat of the day out of the air. Alex found himself staring down at Dr Guerin’s fingers as they worked, first putting the trace on the thin skin of his inner wrist, then beginning with the machine.

Dr Guerin was right, it _did_ hurt. It hurt like getting stabbed with needles. But there was a space where Alex went, a quiet space inside, when things hurt. He knew that space better than any nice feeling he’d been getting to know with Kyle and now with Dr Guerin.

But there was something different about this space. Alex usually fortified himself in there, so during a beating or a bad pain day or the few times he’d been caught without backup on a mission and suffered for it, he could stay as long as he needed to, and it always felt shocky and vague when it was safe enough to come out. But here, it was more like slipping into deep water using an oxygen line. Like, he wasn’t carrying his own tank, which meant he could move more freely, because he trusted the person on the surface to keep him breathing. He knew he’d have to come up slowly, but that there would be a way out that wouldn’t hurt.

Dr Guerin finished the last star surrounding the binary star cluster and pulled away, wiping the skin carefully.

“All done but for the bandage,” he murmured, and Alex began to rise out of himself, taking a quiet breath, then a deeper one, feeling his body coming back to him, pain around his wrist, but a kind of ease, warmth in the rest of him that had nothing to do with temperature.

Dr Guerin turned to the medical kit and Alex admired the long line of his neck into his shorn-short hair. He felt the want to brush his fingers through it, but it was like it was coming from a long ways away, like he could see it, but it didn’t rip at him the way the other feelings had.

Dr Guerin caught his eyes as he turned back, giving him a quiet smile before carefully bandaging his wrist and wrapping his watch back over it.

“All better,” he said, nonsensically. He looked at Alex again: “It takes people like this sometimes, gets kind of meditative, getting a tattoo. Can take a few hours to come down. Want to come in, watch some _Doctor Who_ and chill before bed?”

Alex nodded, not sure he was up for talking yet. Dr Guerin offered a hand and he took it, climbing out of the chair. They took their shoes off, putting them on a rack in the garage; Alex used the prosthetic that let him remove the shoe anytime he was in a culture that expected it.

Inside the house was clean; Dr Guerin clearly hadn’t brought a lot of stuff with him to Qatar. There was a kitchen near the entryway with all chrome appliances, a big white couch, and a TV in the living room, and a room off to the side.

“That’s the guest room. It’s got an en suite, all accessible.” To Alex’s questioning look, he replied: “All the buildings in this compound have at least one accessible bedroom and bathroom. It’s a universal design thing, I think. The honey will be fine in the saddlebags overnight.”

Dr Guerin tugged him towards the couch and sat, Alex realizing he hadn’t let go of Dr Guerin’s hand. He slipped his fingers free, and Dr Guerin glanced at him before turning to the TV. As he got Netflix up and running, he said: “You need sleeping clothes? I’ve got laundry here if you’d like a fresh set for tomorrow.”

Alex pulled himself those last inches to the air, surfacing enough to say: “That’s kind, thanks. I’d appreciate the sleeping clothes. Maybe tomorrow morning I can do the laundry -- what’s your schedule?”

“I’m teaching robotics practicums at 9 and 11am, then office hours 1-5pm.”

“My flight is at 5, so I’ll head to the airport around 1pm.”

“Do you,” Dr Guerin cleared his throat, “You want to, like, shadow me tomorrow? Not that I’m trying to steal you away from,” he paused, “Texas A&M’s engineering department. But Carnegie Mellon’s pretty cool and I think you’d enjoy the classes.”

“I’d like that,” Alex said, with a smile. “Thanks for being so nice. I hope I can repay you next time you’re back in the states.”

“You’re good company, Alex. No need to worry about repaying me.”

Alex shook his head: “That’s not the general consensus.”

“Well, the general consensus can get fucked.”

Alex slapped a hand over his mouth to stop what felt like a giggle growing his chest from getting out. He wanted to lean on Dr Guerin’s shoulder, maybe take a nap in his lap.

He eased himself into the corner of the couch, knee up on the couch and nearly touching Dr Guerin’s hip. They started in the middle of David Tennant’s third season with “The Unicorn and the Wasp.” 

Alex murmured: “I never saw this season; I jumped right into Matt Smith.”

“Gotta love the Star Whale.”

Alex grinned.

Somewhere around when Agatha Christie got into a fight with a giant wasp, Dr Guerin reached over and pulled Alex’s feet into his lap. Alex held his breath for a long moment, but when nothing happened other than the warm feeling of Dr Guerin’s thighs slipping through his jeans to make the skin of his whole shin tingle, he let it out and settled back more fully against the couch’s high arm.

“Want a foot rub?” Dr Guerin asked, eyes not leaving the screen as the Doctor and Donna Noble landed on a planet-sized library.

“I haven’t had one before.” Alex said, looking at the way the blue light moved across Dr Guerin’s face.

Something sparked across his features, something like sadness, something like determination.

“I’m no expert, but I think they’re nice. It’s -- it’s not a come-on. It’s just a nice thing. Positive touch, you know?”

Alex took a breath. He thought about it. Thought about pulling his legs out of his lap; thought about calling a taxi; thought about sleeping alone in an over-air conditioned Gulf hotel room.

“Only if you let me return the favor.”

He got to watch the smile spread across Dr Guerin’s face, moving from something small and secret to something big and warm.

As the Doctor and Donna met River Song and tried to survive the Vashta Nerada, Dr Guerin’s thumb and nimble fingers worked across the arch of Alex’s foot, thumb pressing up under the ball of his foot, tracing the delicate bones on top of his foot, down under his instep and then flexing and unflexing his toes. He repeated the circuit as the Doctor began to unravel the mystery of the planetary library.

When he was done, Alex sighed, feeling his heart slow and steady in his chest, fingers and toes tingling with it.

“You don’t have to --” Dr Guerin started but Alex gestured and he brought his feet up onto Alex’s lap.

“Ticklish at all?’

“Very,” Dr Guerin smiled, “But as long as you keep the contact steady, you _probably_ won’t get kicked in the face.”

Alex chuckled and began to try to mimic what Dr Guerin had done for him.

“You can go a little harder there,” Dr Guerin said, then tilted his head all the way back, exposing a long line of throat going into his shirt. “Yeah.” A few minutes later: “Sliding movements work well on the instep and arch, and pressure usually works best on the ball of the foot and the heel. Oh, man, Alex. That’s good.”

Alex smiled to himself. Dr Guerin kept his feet in Alex’s lap, Alex’s legs tucked between his and the couch. Something about the pressure and the warmth and the touch and the comfort of it all had Alex nodding off less than halfway through "Forest of the Dead"; Alex missed the conclusion. When he woke up, Dr Guerin was reading a book, free hand draped across Alex’s legs, thumb moving in simple patterns on his whole shin. The TV was still on with subtitles playing in the background. Alex reached his arms up, matching Dr Guerin’s smile.

“You looked like you could use the sleep,” Dr Guerin said.

“Apparently,” Alex said, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever falling asleep with someone he’d just met, not without the duress of a mission team or training group. But there was something so safe, so comfortable about Dr Guerin.

“I can show you the guest room?”

“Thanks,” Alex said, and there was a part of him expecting the hand Dr Guerin offered for him, that hadn’t moved until he saw it. He felt like it had to be dangerous, getting used to this easy contact, this easy help. Like he was going to miss it more than he could survive when this was all over.

But he still took his hand. Borrowed his clothes. Went to sleep in the quiet clean coolness of his guest bedroom, listening as he went through his own nighttime routine on the floor above.

\--

Alex was up and making eggs for two when Dr Guerin came downstairs, thanking Kyle about every 30 seconds for teaching him to scramble eggs properly. He’d had the washer running with the previous day’s clothes and was wearing the pajamas Dr Guerin had lent him, that on careful inspection in the morning light, were absolutely covered in tiny cartoon snakes. He’d shaken his head; the man had a theme and he was sticking to it.

“Hope you don’t mind I went through your kitchen,” he said and Dr Guerin shook his head, still blinking himself away. 

“Is there,” he said, voice catching, “Is there coffee?’

Alex shook his head -- “I don’t drink it, so I didn’t --”

Dr Guerin waved his hand at him, flapping him back towards the stove while shuffled toward the coffee maker. Alex’s mind started running laps -- was it a violation of houseguest etiquette to make eggs? Had he fucked this up, this one nice thing, this nice thing he’d found for himself, made last night with Dr Guerin -- 

Dr Guerin got the coffeemaker running then turned around, face pained. “I am not a morning person,” he said, voice slow and carefully neutral sounding. “You making eggs is incredibly nice. Totally unnecessary, but really, really nice. I promise that I won’t sound like I’m reading the script during a hostage video in a minute. I just need some,” and he made grabby hands at the coffee maker.

Alex’s heart began to slow down. He tried a smile. “I never developed a taste for it,” then he paused, not sure he’d told anyone this in years. “I’m more of a hot cocoa guy myself.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dr Guerin said, and there was a lot more wonder in those words than Alex thought they warranted; but like Dr Guerin said, his tone was kind of fucked from tiredness.

“How’s the tattoo doing?”

Alex undid his watch, showing him the fresh bandage.

“Just keep changing it every few days.” He took a breath: “You still ok shadowing me? I’d understand if you wanted to go sight-seeing or something.”

Alex shook his head: “Honestly, getting to explore a university-level robotics course is a dream of mine.”

There it was again, that flicker of pain over Dr Guerin’s face. “Yeah,” he murmured. Then, louder: “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

\--

They headed into campus on Dr Guerin’s bike, Alex grinning into the wind behind his faceplate. The classes were just as much fun as Dr Guerin promised, the students bright and feisty, not taking an inch of Dr Guerin’s shit and giving it back to him twice over, calling him "Doc" and making fun of everything from his buzzcut to the color of ink he used to write his comments on their papers.

They were building a competition robot for a tournament in Dubai the following weekend, where the robot needed to navigate a particular course, putting out a candle hidden in one of the rooms. The lowest score won. They had a big mock-up of the course on the floor of the classroom, and each student had a role: coding, soldering, testing -- a well-oiled, cheerfully shouting machine.

Alex watched for the first hour, and in the 15 minute break between classes when he and Dr Guerin were in the teacher’s lounge, he said: “You know, there’s a faster way to win that.”

“Hmm?” Dr Guerin was holding a cup of coffee to his face like it was a SCUBA mask and he was 30 feet down. He was sitting at the lone armchair in the room, Alex perched on the arm of it, hip pressed to his shoulder.

“The goal is to get the lowest score, and you start with your time to completion, and get a better score if you put out the candle with something other than a fan, if you cover every room, if you separate into parts to parallelize the problem, if you have very little code, right?”

“Yeah?”

Alex grinned and said: “Enter a block of dry ice with a spring-powered hammer. The hammer will break it into pieces so it evaporates faster. It’ll cover every room, separate into parts, has no code, and will stifle the candle.”

Dr Guerin stared up at him. Then he stared at the ceiling. Then he stared into his coffee. Then he stared at Alex again.

“You know, you’d think I would know this, but you’re a little bit evil.”

“More than a little,” Alex said, grinning.

“And that’s why I --” And Dr Guerin gulped back what he was going to say, replacing it with: “And that’s why you’re great. And as a reward for your evil-ness, you get to explain that to the next class.”

Alex raised his hands. “Oh, no, I can’t --”

Dr Guerin shook his head. “You had the good idea, now you have to share it. Those are the rules.”

Alex frowned: “No, I --”

Dr Guerin softened. “Look, Alex, if you don’t want to, I won’t make you. But I think it’ll be fun. We’re still going to enter the robots we built, it’s a robotics class, not a rules-lawyering class. But it’ll be good for them to hear another perspective. Help get their brains a little freer. Help them think new thoughts.”

Alex looked down at him, the easy humor in his eyes, the soft smile he was giving him and said: “Sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are all places I've been. I think the only detail I made-up wholesale is that all of the downstairs bedrooms in the compound housing are accessible. They might be, but I don't know that for sure. Honestly, I think Michael's lying about that. I think every place he's ever had a choice about living since he was 14 has been accessible.
> 
> Special thanks to the amazing folks at the Roswell 18+ Discord group, particularly Lambourn, Lori Lane, lostinthe-storm, and el-gilliath for helping me remember what the different parts of the foot are called. (It was the year 2020 when I discovered the arch of the foot is not the bridge). The footrub scene is courtesy of this discussion
> 
> The dry-ice robot story is from this post bc I love it: https://ifunny.co/picture/what-is-the-funniest-loophole-you-have-ever-seen-e-X0kfiWvy6


	7. The bottle is ready to blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to angst!
> 
> Note, there's a scary moment for 10-year-old Michael here that's covered under the "child abuse" tag, but because we just came from utter fluff, I wanted to remind folks to mind the tags pls.

Alex and Dr Guerin walked out of the mesa-red building at 1pm to the massive portico where the taxis picked people up from campus; it arched, white and made of lacy steel, sunlight filtering through it in unexpected geometrical shapes and patterns. 

They stood, shoulder-to-shoulder in the midday heat, fingers inches apart. As Alex saw the yellow taxi coming down the long drive, he was seized with the impossible urge not to go back. Just to, take off his watch, dig out his chest implant without bleeding out all over Dr Guerin and just -- stay. Get a job, get a degree, get a place in the world that was _his_ , just _his_. And maybe, figure out how to fit someone else into it. Something with golden eyes and warm hands and a smile that made his body feel his for the first time he could remember.

He stifled it, but only barely, turning to Dr Guerin, taking a deep breath, trying to figure out what he could say that would let this thing end softly, a gentle ending that wouldn’t hurt.

But Dr Guerin caught his hand in his, fingers tight on his. “I don’t need you to end this. Or make promises you can’t keep. I just need you to stay alive, ok?” He squeezed his fingers once, hard enough Alex could feel it. 

The strength of that grip gave him what he needed to say: “I will. You too, Dr Guerin.”

Dr Guerin gave him a half-a-smile and nodded. “Will do.”

The taxi pulled up, and Alex felt it drill through him, the painful feeling of leaving. “Can I hug you?” Alex asked, voice rough, barely under control.

“Yeah, Alex,” Dr Guerin said, pulling him in. “Anytime. Absolutely any time. Just ask, and I’m yours.”

“I’m,” Alex started, and he couldn’t find the words. Dr Guerin patted his back easily, breathing so he had a rhythm to breathe along to. “I feel like I’m yours too, I just --” he started, and then rubbed his eyes hard. “Shit, I don’t know why I said that.”

“You’re fine,” Dr Guerin said, eyes intent on his. “You’re going to be fine. I’ll see you.”

“Ok,” Alex said, taking a breath. “Ok. We’ve got time.”

There it was, that half-quirked smile. “Yeah, Alex, we’ve got time.”

\--

Once they were out of the Education City complex and he couldn’t see Dr Guerin in the rear view mirror, Alex began packing his emotions back into their boxes. Affection went here; touch went here; lust went here; wanting went here; skin hunger went here; friendship went here; comfort went here; safety went here. He was left with pain and loss and hurt and they went into boxes too: pain here and longing here and hurt here and loss here and aching loneliness here. He was left with the ghosts of the feelings, but a clearer head than since he’d seen those honeyshine eyes.

“You can drop me at Souq Waqif,” he told the driver, who just nodded. There were enough quiet places in the souq for him to slip into unseen, he could disappear and no one would ever know he was gone. 

_Except Dr Guerin,_ came a voice inside, _he’ll remember you._

Alex put that voice in a box all it’s own.

\--

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in the time chamber. He was crouched among the grasses at the base of a split rail fence, the sharp smell of sage around him, a high moon in the sky and an interstate highway in front of him. He pulled himself to standing. About 20 feet in front of him was a car with it’s window rolled down, someone leaning out of it. Across the grass, perched on the fence, was a little kid.

Curly hair, a limp backpack, and there, his voice: “Go away! I don’t need a fucking ride! Leave me alone!”

There was fury in that tiny voice, rage and hurt and -- Alex was running, not thinking about his prosthetic, not thinking about where he’d come from, just hearing that fear in Michael’s voice and he was sprinting.

The man was just opening the car door when Alex slammed it shut with his entire weight, fist going through the open window to knock the man to the side.

“Leave him alone.” Alex said; then he remembered: Mr Ridley hadn’t been able to hear him.

He’d just have to find other ways of being persuasive.

The man struggled back upright and Alex caught him under the soft skin of his jaw, pushing in, restricting the man’s breathing until he was getting barely a spoonful with each breath. When he started to gasp, he eased off.

“What the --”

“You’d better leave me alone or my ghost will kill you!” Alex heard Michael shout.

“What the _fuck_ ,” the man said, fumbling with his keys. He started the car and Alex scraped his thumb down the man’s face, leaving a long line and breaking the skin as he shrunk away from him and screamed.

“Stay away from kids, asshole,” he said, hoping some part of his voice could get through whatever barrier was keeping him from being seen by anyone but Michael.

He pulled his arm away as the man shoved the pedal down, tired screeching, gravel flying.

He whipped around to see Michael still sitting on the rail of the fence.

“Michael,” he said striding forward, trying to see if he was ok.

“You stay away from me too!”

Alex froze, hands dropping to his sides like his strings were cut.

“Are you ok?” He said, voice neutral as his mind spun.

“Fucking _no!”_ He shouted; Alex could tell he’d been crying and was trying to hide it.

“Michael, what happened, why are you out here --”

“You fucking _lied_ to me, Alex!” he shouted. “You _lied_ to me! You said you’d bring my family, you’d get them to see me, the other kids, the ones who _know_ me, aren’t old and scared and hiding, other _kids_.”

Alex didn’t know what to say; he hadn’t had a mission before 1999 since he last saw Michael, so unless he wanted to find another Time Agent to send information back in time with, he hadn’t had any way to do that.

Michael looked even angrier than he had a second before: “What, did you _forget_?”

Alex tried to start to say something, to explain, but Michael steamrolled over him: “Did you, did you try and they, they didn’t want to see me?” He hiccuped and then slammed his small fist against his leg, jaw working: “They didn’t want me. They didn’t. I knew it.”

“Michael,” Alex said desperately, “where is Sara?”

Michael sneered, shaking his head: “She said she found a family who were like me, and they came to get me, but they went to sleep and didn’t read to me and no one had my stuff, not my lamp, not my books, not my maps, Sara said she’d bring them next weekend but,” he took a big heaping gasp, driving on, each word like a knife in Alex’s chest, “She called and said she might have to bring them later and she’s never going to and they don’t want me, they didn’t even read to me, they didn’t have my Wolverine blanket, they wouldn’t let me call Sara because they said it too late and I --”

He covered his face, sobbing into his hands. Alex stepped closer, trying to hear him as he mumbled: “And you _lied_. You said you’d find them, bring them to me. And you didn’t and you didn’t and you’re here and I’m _alone_. I’m _all alone_. _Always_.”

Alex tried to take a breath, checking his watch. 795 seconds left.

“Michael, what year is it?”

His voice was tiny, but he said: “2000. June 21st.”

 _No chance he had a cellphone then._ Alex said: “I need you to walk into Roswell with me, go to the Sheriff's office, and get someone to drive you home.” As Michael started to sputter, he held up a hand. “You can shout as much as you want, you can ask questions and I will answer them. But you need to get back home and safe -- either to Sara or these new people.”

Michael sniffled, lowering himself off the fence and shrugging on his backpack. “Sara doesn’t want me,” he said.

Alex started walking, a quick enough pace it would get them at least with sight of the city. He knew the Sheriff’s station was on this side of town, and he just hoped he could get them there before his time ran out. Michael kept up, skipping a little to match Alex’s pace. Alex checked his downloaded offline maps on his phone; they were 13 minutes away.

“I know she wants you there, but it sounds like this new placement needs some help. I’m sure they called Sara and they’re worried about you.”

“I fucking doubt it,” Michael said, rubbing his hand under his nose. Then he looked up at Alex. “Why do you look so normal?”

Alex closed his eyes, trying to figure out how to explain this last mission in terms a 10 year old would understand. _And not make him hate me._ He stalled for time: “What do you mean?”

“You usually look like the Winter Soldier. Now you look like Black Widow.”

“So we’re branching out from X-Men then?”

“Don’t avoid the question.”

Alex laughed: “My last mission had me undercover; so, kind of like Black Widow.”

“The new people, they said Time Agents hunt them. Are you hunting me?”

Alex shook his head: “No. Never.”

Michael looked at him, _hard._ Then: “Ok.”

They walked another few paces. “Why didn’t you bring my family to me? You said you would.” Michael reminded him. Alex didn’t know a lot about kids, but he knew not to argue the point.

“I’m a Time Agent, right? So, I don’t always get to go back to a certain time because I want to,” and he’d feel the guilt later that he hadn’t even tried to find a way to get back earlier later, but for now he had 603 seconds and they had to hustle. “But I _will_ get sent back from 1999 sometime, and then I can tell them to come to you. And then it will be like it had always happened.”

“For you.” Michael said and Alex looked down, seeing his face twisting, pain welling up out of his eyes again.

“What?”

“‘It will like it always happened’ for _you_.” He said again, voice shaking with fear and rage. “What about me? This me? Will I,” and his breathing was getting faster and he stopped walking and all Alex wanted to do was throw him over his shoulder and _run_ but he would never lay hands on the kid, so he just stood, and listened to his heart breaking: “Will I just _always_ be alone? Forever? Like, if you send them to the younger me, to the me in 1999, then that’s a branch in the Trousers of Time, right? And _I_ ,” he slammed his fist against his chest, “ _I_ will _never_ meet them. I’ll _never meet my family_ , Alex! _Never_. All because _you_ didn’t send them to be when you _promised_ you would. Some _other_ Michael will get to see them. _Not me_.”

“That’s --” and Alex wanted to disagree, wanted to explain that’s not how it worked -- but it _was_ how it worked. It was _exactly_ how it worked. “You wouldn’t _remember_ ,” he said weakly, kneeling in front of him, trying to get him to meet his eyes.

Michael just shook his head, tears dripping down his face and onto his new sneakers. “It’s _me_ ,” he said, a sob choking his voice. “ _I’m_ the one who’d never have a real family again.”

Alex’s voice shook when he said: “What do you want me to do?” His chest felt like he had a hole in it, cracking and crackling with the raw pain in Michael’s eyes when he raised them to meet his.

“Promise me,” Michael said, voice hard and tear-filled. “ _Promise_ me you’ll never change my past again. I don’t,” he sniffled, scrubbing his nose with his fist, “ _Promise_ me you won’t send me on any pant legs of time but _this_ one. I don’t want any more Michaels out there, without Moms or safe places to stay, or _anything_. If I ask you for help and you think the only way you can give it to me is to go into my past, _ask_ me. Then I’ll tell you if it’s ok.”

And that hit Alex right in the heart; the fear and pain and anger at having all your choices taken away, at adults deciding how your life was going to go and never asking you. Never giving you a choice.

“I promise.” He said, and Michael’s eyes flew up to meet him. “I promise.” Michael searched his eyes and Alex tried to show as clearly as he could this was something he meant with his whole heart.

Michael saw it: “Ok,” Michael said and took a deep breath. 

Alex glanced at his watch, 389 seconds left.

Alex shoved himself to standing. “We’re still 10 minutes out if we walk. 6 if we run. Can you run with me, Michael?”

Michael nodded and Alex started running, each step a smacking pain on his stump; but he forced himself to keep a steady pace. “If I disappear, you have to keep running, Michael, ok? Run until you find the Sheriff's station.”

“Ok,” Michael said, not breathing too hard; good. Alex could do this carrying Michael, if he had to, but it might permanently fuck-up his leg. _I’ll do it if I have to_ , he knew, refusing to think about whether he would be allowed to time travel again if he had to use a crutch at all times.

He heard Michael’s voice. “I wanted to see if they would come and get me.”

“Who?” Alex asked, grateful for his PT that his voice was still steady.

“My Mom and Dad. I thought if I went back to Foster’s Ranch, they might come back to get me. That's where they last saw me, is that the new people said.”

“Oh, Michael,” Alex said, not knowing what else to say.

“It’s not stupid!” Michael said, lagging behind as he got mad.

Alex kept pace beside him and he sped up again. “You’re never stupid, Michael.”

Michael looked uncertain, and then he nodded, speeding up. Alex caught up with him: “So, you started reading Terry Pratchett?” Alex asked.

Michael turned wide eyes to him, but kept his pace up. “How’d you know?”

“‘Trousers of Time,’” Alex replied. “Commander Vimes says that, right? In _Jingo_?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. "Sara read it to me." They’d reached the city limits, blank storefronts and quavering streetlights. Alex checked his watch: 127 seconds. 

“I like Granny Weatherwax better,” Michael said, “She can move things with her mind too,”

Alex laughed, tasting copper. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I always liked her. I like that she protects the people she cares about. Did you both read _Carpe Jugulum_?”

“Yeah,” Michael huffed.

“Only a little longer to go,” Alex said, checking his map. Michael sped back up, hand on his side like he had a stitch.

“Do you remember that thing Granny Weatherwax says to the priest who’s fighting the vampires, about what sin is?”

“Maybe?” Michael said, breaking the word into gasps.

Alex could see the lights of the Sheriff's station. He checked his watch: 29 seconds.

“She said that sin is treating people as things. That’s what sin is. And you’re right, you don’t deserve to have things change in your life without you knowing, getting a choice. Not if you have someone who is making those changes who will listen to you.”

13 seconds.

“Michael, run ahead of me. I’m about to disappear.”

“Ghost, don’t go, I’m sorry I yelled --”

Alex couldn’t breathe, but he used the last of his air to say: “ _Run_ , Michael!”

Michael ran. Alex kept running, body shaking, jerking with the effort. The boot on his chest got heavier and heavier. He saw Michael pound on the brass-framed door of the Sheriff’s station, looking behind him at Alex the whole time. Just as the feeling like a palm over his face took the last of his vision, Alex saw an officer in bright lipstick approach him. 

His knees hit the ground, pain shrieking through him as he fell into the timestream.

He saw his life, reverse-chronological as always through the blue-tinged timestream, every version of time he’d been in, all 152 timelines he tracked inside his mind. Except now he actually _looked_ at the 151 he no longer inhabited, the people left in them, the people he _didn’t_ save, who _his_ choices left behind.

Then he was in the time chamber, and for a moment, he was profoundly grateful that the mission to Doha had been intended to be a failure from the start. It meant when the scientists looked at him-- and it was just the scientists alone, because the Ambassador and the other three American men killed in Benghazi were still dead and his father and brother didn't come to failed missions -- when the scientists looked at him, they could assume his tears were from shame at failing his mission and not anything else.

\--

"So," Kyle said brightly over breakfast the next morning after he'd nearly had to drag Alex out of bed to eat. "You had a lovely all-day date with a beautiful man. You had crépes, ice cream, got an invisible UV-ink tattoo -- which does not fit the pattern but you do you -- you watched _Doctor Who_ and got a foot rub. You slept in his guest room because he's 20 and you set good, appropriate boundaries. Then you cooked him breakfast, got to play with robots, be a brilliant and sneaky scientist, and say goodbye to him, which was hard but you did it. You also completed an impossible mission to the best of your ability. Then you saved your child friend from a creepy guy in a car, set appropriate boundaries with him. Which, honestly, to me, is the most science fictional part of this because you had a logical conversation with a 10-year-old boy and that doesn't _happen_ , Alex. Believe me: I have cousins. Then you got him to safety."

"That's -- that's not what happened," Alex mumbled, staring into the whirling vortex he was creating in the middle of his bowl of cereal. "I failed my mission, I had to let down someone I would have liked to see again and can't see again, I made Michael cry, I messed-up my leg so I'm on crutches for the next week --"

Kyle shook his head. "Look, after a good thing happens, particularly a _really_ good thing, like it sounds like your day with Dr Guerin was, sometimes our brains try to even things out by making everything seem terrible. Particularly people with your traumas and experiences, who are, perhaps, not used to good things happening to him. That's the shitty chemicals in your brain fooling you. Some bad stuff happened yesterday, but not much that you had immediate control over and none you should beat yourself up about."

Alex frowned. "It doesn't _feel_ that way."

Kyle sighed, nudging a doughnut his direction. Alex looked at it and reached for an apple instead. "Yeah, that's kinda how feelings work. They're not logical. If they were logical, they wouldn't be called feelings."

"It sucks." Alex grumbled, biting the apple. "I looked up a Dr Guerin from Carnegie Mellon's Qatar campus on my new computer. It was my first-ever Google search on a device I owned," he said resentfully, tearing the sales sticker on the apple. "He doesn't exist. I hacked their alumnae and alumni database: nada. I searched for different spellings, different uses of spaces. I looked through every video about the robotics program's robot snake research; they got it working and it's finding people in collapsed buildings after earthquakes. I looked through every graduation photo and they all look like they were taken on potatoes because it was 2010 and not enough people were using iPhones."

Kyle frowned, chewing his pink-frosting-ed doughnut thoughtfully. "Was the name fake?"

"I don't know!" Alex said, voice too loud. Then he gripped the edge of the table, forcing his tone closer to normal, not letting heartbreak crack through it. "All his students just called him 'Doc.' I didn't ask for papers before sleeping over." He dragged his hands through his hair, "Oh God, Kyle, why did I go over there? I'm not -- I've never," he closed his eyes. "I've never come out to _anyone_ in my _entire life_ and he just -- he _knew._ Ok? He _knew_ and he was nice and smart and I just --"

"Do you want to come out?"

"No!" Alex said, sure as a hammer. "Maybe," he said, thinking of the men he'd seen holding hands. "I don't know," he groaned, putting the apple aside.

Kyle put a pear down on Alex's plate with a _plink_. "Food, sleep, and water. My mother always told me you can survive with 2 of those 3 if you have to. But you didn't sleep last night while you were trying to find your Dr Guerin, so you need food and water to get through today."

"I don't know what I'm doing today," Alex said. "I'd _planned_ on finding Dr Guerin, dropping him a line, figuring out some way to explain why I haven't aged in 10 years, seeing if he even remembered me, and like, asking him if he was married or busy this afternoon, then buying a plane ticket and, like, getting drinks or something."

He covered his face with his hands and wondered for a moment if he looked like Michael had in the middle of his tantrum. The thought pulled him back upright.

"But since that didn't work," before Kyle could interrupt with his obnoxious positivity, Alex said: "and I have feelers out to the university, seeing if there's some kind of records I can track down to see who was teaching the 9am and 11am robotics courses, but it's a holiday there and I'm not a high priority on their list." He took a breath: "We need to focus on finding Michael's two friends. And make sure my next mission is before 2000, so I can get letters to the right people to make sure they contact him _after_ he and I last saw each other, so I can keep my promise."

"And that involves going to Caulfield."

The smell of smoke, the lines of graves dug like nails into the back of Alex's skull, but he just forced himself to nod. "And that involves talking to Flint."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about the robot snakes is true: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/september/snakebot-mexico.html
> 
> That special detail included bc christchex liked the robot snakes. :D


	8. awakens ancient feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to all of the lovely folks of the Roswell 18+ Discord for their amazing encouragement on this piece!

Alex’s heart slammed hot and painful in his chest as he drove Kyle’s truck the last 25 miles to Caulfield. Kyle sat silent beside him, his nerves only betrayed by the tight grip he had on his knees and the way he’d been humming along off-key to the Wheezer song Alex had been looping. Both of their work phones were in an ice cooler in the back, so at least they could hum or talk without being overheard.

“I know you don’t need to, but I want to go over the cover story one last time,” Kyle said, voice tightly controlled.

Alex had locked his feelings in a chest with careful labels on each tuck-box before leaving Kyle’s apartment that morning, so his voice was even and calm: “I texted Flint to tell him that I have a theory on the cause of my 1000 second delay. I said I need to talk to the scientists who developed my implant.”

“Yes.”

“He said I could drive by this afternoon and he would have them out of their cells, dressed and waiting for me in the staff conference room.”

“‘Dresssed’?” Kyle choked.

Alex gripped the wheel as tightly as he could, then let go, hoping the blood would make it to his tingling cheeks. His entire face felt numb. Kyle had checked, again, this morning, that Michael wasn’t in Caulfield. That none of the changes he’d made to the timestream or Michael’s life had landed him in that hell-on-earth.

“I don’t know what he meant, Kyle. Maybe he meant in lab coats.”

“That’s naive.”

“That’s the only way I know how to get through this, Kyle. The people who were caring for Michael -- or trying to -- the last time I saw him are locked up in here. They have been since the rez raid.”

“So you’re going to talk to them and tell them -- what? Every _single_ thing you say will be monitored and recorded.”

Alex tapped his thumb on the wheel; he knew Kyle was nervous and wasn’t meaning to second-guess him and tell him things he already knew. It didn’t stop his temper from bubbling under his surface; but he had 28 years of keeping it under control, keeping it from hurting anyone else. 

He was glad his voice was even when he said: “You’re going to find a networked computer to plug the USB I gave you into; that is, in all likelihood, how we’re going to find the kids Michael remembered waking up with. It will also put a tracker into their system, so if they find any new aliens -- “

“You mean if they find Michael, wherever he is in the present time --”

“ _Yes_ , Kyle, if they somehow find Michael --”

Kyle’s voice was careful, controlled when he asked: “Do you want to find him ourselves? Michael? See how he’s doing in 2018?”

“I don’t.” Alex said, voice hard. Then he had to think about why: “I -- it’s the pattern, right? For him, I see him once a year. And once a year, he asks me for something. Like I’m his fairy god-assassin. And if I find out how it all turned out for him, before the pattern is over, then -- what if he asks for help with something and I’m biased against it, because I think I know how it will all turn out?” Alex shook his head. “I want to give him control over his life, as much as I can. I don’t want to know more about his future than he does, any more than I already do. It’s like -- not peaking ahead in the storybook. If that makes sense. He can’t do the same for me, and it doesn’t seem fair.”

“It does make sense.” Kyle said, with something like resignation. “Honorable-self-sacrificing-Alex Manes-sense.”

“Back to task,” Alex said, putting on his turn signal and merging towards the county road exit they would need. “I’m going to go talk to the prisoners, the ones taken from the rez and who were Michael’s foster parents. I think if they knew where those kids were, they would have found them and introduced Michael to them, but I’m hoping they may have a clue we missed. I expect it will take you at least an hour to find an unattended computer you can compromise.” Alex didn’t mention that he’d had entire missions dedicated to just _finding_ one unattended computer, much less infiltrating it. But he didn’t want to discourage the doctor. 

“And what are you going to say -- how can they possibly trust you?”

Alex took a deep breath, slowing for the security gate: “I don’t need them to trust me; I need them to want to help Michael.”

Alex flashed his Time Agent ID to the board-looking guard and then pulled to the right off the main road to the gape-eyed prison. 

Flint’s office was in an annex, a former guard barracks just outside of the prison’s perimeter. Apparently even Flint didn’t want to spend his days surrounded by the fugue of misery that infected that place. _Not that it was much better here._

As Alex moved to open the truck door, Kyle caught his sleeve and gestured to the dashboard clock: 8:54am. “We’ve got a few minutes before he’s expecting us. Before we go in there, what’s our self-care plan for after?”

“What?”

Kyle leveled a hard stare at him: “We’re going to go through a traumatic experience. Caulfield always is, even when I was going in there 5 days a week. We need to plan for self-care.”

Alex shook his head, his affect flat: “I don’t need that. This is just a mission.” He wondered if comparing hacking into Caulfield to an intelligence mission against a foreign target should have worried him more than it did. _Not if it reunites Michael with his family_.

Kyle wrapped his hand around Alex’s wrist: “The only reason you _don’t_ have a self-care plan for every one of your missions is the Colonel has turned down my requests 47 times in the past 3 years.”

“I’ve only gone on 46 missions in the past 3 years,” Alex said.

“I made the Somalia request twice.”

Alex remembered copper in his mouth and fire so hot it had burned his eyelashes; and children: eyes open, not moving. He pushed the memory down, back into its labeled box.

Kyle was watching him and then he gave him a ghost of a smile: “So, this time, I’m taking my request to a higher authority on your well-being.”

“You?” Alex asked, trying to keep his tone light.

“No. _You_ , Alex. You are the highest authority on your own well-being. So, what are you doing for self-care after this?”

“I don’t want a bubble bath.”

Kyle rolled his eyes.

“How about -- PT? Shooting range? What makes your head go quiet?”

 _Dr Guerin’s hands on my wrist as he puts a star system into my skin_ , Alex thought, rubbing his wrist where his watch covered the small bandage.

He said: “I used to have a lot of books. Flint tossed them two years ago, said they were cluttering up the room on base. Said they didn’t ‘spark joy.’” He closed his eyes, remembering the full shelves, trying not to think of them so empty now except for Flint’s shooting medals. “It was my entire collection I’d built since joining the Time Agency. Terry Pratchett, Robin McKinley, Octavia Butler, Orson Scott Card, David Webber, all that stuff.”

Kyle pulled back, a horrified look on his face: “He -- he tossed your _books_? What -- what the fuck?”

Alex frowned a little: “I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter --”

“I’m not blaming you, Alex! It’s never you I’m going to blame for Flint or you Dad or the goddamned Time Agency. It’s not. _Fuck_.” He took a deep breath, forcing his tone down as Alex unclenched his toes in his boot. “Ok, book shopping downtown then? Then reading time in the apartment?”

“ _Quiet_ reading. No talking. Just -- reading. Maybe in the same room?”

“Sounds perfect. And for mine, I want pie. A whole-ass pie.” Kyle leveled a narrow glare at Alex. “And no one to judge me for it.”

Alex held up his hands. “No judgement here.”

Kyle tightened his grip for a moment: “Can I take the lead in talking to Flint? I -- I don’t want you to have to if you don’t want to.”

“He’s my brother.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, “And he’s a vindictive asshole and I have a less to lose if I piss him off.”

“He could get you fired.”

“He could get you to move back in with him,” Kyle shot back. “If he held Michael over your head? In an _instant_. I’m serious, Alex. As your friend. Let me be your human shield against your family, just for today.”

Alex thought of Flint’s cold stare the last time he’d seen him in the cafeteria, the way he was certain he was tracking his work cellphone. He thought it _would_ be worth it moving back in with Flint if it kept Michael safe, though he would be sorry to miss the chance of finding Dr Guerin again. “Alright.”

\--

Flint met them at the door to the annex, hand out to Kyle and nodding to Alex. Kyle chattered gamely about their research into Alex’s “mysterious time gaps,” as Flint glared at Alex and tried to invent reasons to get him alone. Kyle deflected them all. Finally, Flint showed Alex to a cold, windowless conference room with fluorescent lights and a massive, spotless table in the middle of the annex. Kyle asked for a tour of the annex, leaving Alex alone at the glass doorway. He could spot 3 cameras in the room from here.

Inside were two elders, hands chained, in dirty prison uniforms.

Alex couldn’t breathe; he saw Michael’s face in their weathered features. Saw them holding him when he had a nightmare, saw them picking him up from the Sheriff's station when he’s disappeared, saw them eating dinner with his Mom, decorating his room with him, helping him pick out colleges --

It was like a fist around his heart, but he swallowed past it. Michael had asked him to help and he was going to try to help.

Their gazes snapped to him as soon as he opened the door, faces blank but with such an undercurrent of rage Alex had to stiffen his spine to walk into the room.

He took a seat and their eyes followed him. 

“My name is Alex Manes,” he said.

“We know who you are.” The woman bit-out, mouth twisting in disgust.

“Jesse Manes’s boy.”

“And Sara Shanta’s son.” He said, and there it was, a flare of recognition. _Gotcha_ , he thought, and then felt ashamed.

The woman’s eyes narrowed: “So is Flint Manes.”

Alex blinked, sitting back. “Yes. Yes he is.”

He took a breath, conscious of the listening ears in the room: “I asked to meet you today because I’ve been having visions, dreams,” he said, “time gaps of exactly 1000 seconds at the end of my approved missions.” He tapped the device embedded in his chest. “You invented the technology that allows me to time travel.”

The man’s head shook but the women shushed him.

“We’re not some mystical aliens for you to sprew your crappy dreams to, Manes. We’re prisoners of _your_ family, _your_ government, and we don’t have a damned thing to say to you.”

Alex pushed on: “Look, if all you want to do is ignore me for the next hour, that is fine. I’ll understand. If I could get you out right now, I would,” let Flint think he was manipulating them; he just hoped they could see the truth in his eyes. “But I think you may have something to say about the dreams I’ve been having, and I would like to know what’s going on with me.”

The woman began to sneer again but the man leaned forward, chained hands making a jerking motion towards hers, like he wanted to cover her hand.

“I don’t get to read a lot of science fiction these days, so sure, Manes: tell us a story.”

Alex nodded, forcing his shoulders back and straight: “I see a lamp shaped like a flying saucer; a wolverine; a map of the stars.”

The man’s eyes grew wide as he looked Alex up and down, horrified; the woman was nearly vibrating with rage.

Alex rushed out before she could explode: “But I think there were _three_ lamps. _Three_. But two are missing or -- separated? The one lamp would shine brighter if it were beside them. It _wants_ to.”

The two of them looked at each other, and the man’s hand made that jerking motion again against the chains while the woman stared into his eyes, trying to communicate something to him. Alex looked away, trying to give them the most privacy he could in this panopticon of a room.

He turned to Alex, opening his mouth when she said: “Jared _no_ \--”

And he turned back to her: “Marie.” And that was it, just her name.

Jared closed his eyes, taking a breath. “Do you have a pen?”

Alex nodded, pulling a receipt from his pocket; it was the from the Time Library, his receipt for the copies of _Ender’s Game_ and _Ender’s Shadow_ he’d given Michael.

He passed it across and the man wrote for a moment, hunched over so the cameras couldn’t see. He slid it back to Alex, folded in half.

Alex looked at it, memorized the address and the words under it, then tore the unused bottom portion off, writing something on it in his best approximation of the man’s handwriting. He slipped them into two different pockets before looking up at the man.

“Thank you. Would you rather spend the next hour in this room together, without me; with me here; or would you like to go back?”

Alex glanced at the door, startling internally to see Flint standing there at parade rest, watching them.

Jared looked at Marie, whose face was twisted with grief: “If you leave, Maria and I can talk. We’ve been apart for months.”

She nodded, tears finally breaking past her eyelashes and dripping onto her hands.

Jared struggled to stand, reaching his chained hands out for Alex’s. Alex walked around the table, reaching out to gently shake his hand. Jared grabbed his wrist, yanking him in so Alex nearly overbalanced on his prosthetic: “We didn’t invent it.”

Alex looked at him, eyes wide. The man glanced to the door, to Flint’s waiting face. “Good luck.”

Alex thanked them again and stood. Flint moved back, barely enough to let Alex by; as it was, he had to brush against his chest to get into the hallway.

“What did he give you?” Flint demanded before the door fully closed. Kyle was nowhere to be found.

“Why are their clothes filthy?” Alex spat back. “Why did you say they had to get dressed for this? What the _fuck_ kind of ship are you running here, Flint?”

“That’s not of your _fucking_ business, Alex,” Flint growled. “Stay in your goddamned lane. We have a chain of command in this family, and I don’t answer to _you_.” He reached for Alex’s pocket, and Alex shoved himself back into the flimsy wall of the hallway, fingers clenching around the receipt he’d written on, the other safe in his back pocket.

“ _What_ did they give you?” Flint repeated, menacing towards Alex.

“Nothing of use,” Alex hissed. 

“I’ll be the decider of that,” Flint said, right in his face. “Give it to me.”

“No.” Alex said, making a fist in his pocket.

“I’ll have you strip-searched like I’m going to have them strip-searched if you don’t.”

Alex sneered up at him: “Like I fucking care, there’s not a person in the Time Agency who hasn’t seen me naked at this point.” Flint ground his teeth, like he hadn’t thought that threat would fail. Like he couldn’t think of anything worse than being seen by the people around him. 

Then he looked sly: “If you give it to me, I’ll make sure they get to keep their clothes. _And_ I’ll put them back into a shared cell, the way they were before the last re-organization.”

Alex looked into the room, watched Jared press his forehead to Marie’s, trying to put his hand on her cheek without the chains on his wrists pressing against her lips.

“Fine.” He said, handing Flint the crumpled decoy receipt. “And I want a report on their status weekly moving forward. Including video evidence their clothing and living situations have improved,” he leaned in, hand pressed to the middle of Flint’s chest, backing him up. “This may be your little fiefdom, but I’m a Captain in the US Air Force, Flint. And we abide by the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions, even in this shit-hole. Or I’ll know why and take it up the _real_ chain of command.”

He saw Kyle hustling down the hallway towards them and whispered: “I don’t want to see you in front of a dishonorable discharge commission for war crimes; do you?”

Then Kyle was beside them, relentlessly chirpy voice like a steel baton forcing its way between them, making Flint step back: “Got what you need, Alex?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Alex said, heading towards the door.

Flint called after him: “See you for your next mission, Alex. See if you can keep from getting people killed this time?”

Alex flinched but Kyle’s body behind him kept Flint front seeing. He held fist high, giving Flint a one-finger salute as he pushed open the door to the outside.

They put their phones into the ice cooler in the back, then Alex sighed.

“Do you have a change of clothes?”

“What?” Kyle asked. 

Alex shook his head: “Flint got close to me in the hallway; he probably planted another tracker and some kind of mic. I’d rather not carry them on me.”

“I’ve got my gym stuff --”

“That’s fine.”

“Do you want to go back inside?”

Alex shook his head, eyes on the broken earth between him and the main prison building, heart thrashing in his chest. “I can change out here; I don’t want to get anywhere near that place again.”

He slipped off his shirt, taking the pale blue singlet Kyle handed him. He sat on the tailgate to shuck his fatigue pants for a pair of black sweats, carefully palming the receipt Jared had written on out first. He precisely folded the pants and shirt and dumped them in the ice chest; he didn’t want to destroy the tracker or the mic. Sometimes it was good to be able to get information back to someone without them knowing you knew they were listening.

“Mind if I drive?” Alex asked, and Kyle nodded, moving over to the passenger side.

Once they were out of the prison complex, Kyle started to talk: “I put the USB drive into Flint’s computer while he was doing his Colonel Manes Impression in the hallway, thanks for the distraction.”

Alex’s heart had not stopped racing and he was only just starting to feel his hands again. “Sure, anytime.”

“You know it’s not true, right?” Kyle said. 

“Which part?”

“Any of it. You’re allowed to care about Caulfield and when missions -- particularly missions that are literally impossible -- don’t go right, you’re not responsible for the people who die.” He paused. “Unless you kill them.”

Alex stretched out his neck. “I hate to break it to you, Doc, but I kill a lot of people. On purpose.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “The ethics of war are hard. Particularly when, by my count, there have been fewer than 2 years in our entire lives when our country has not been at war.” 

“When?”

“March 2000 to September 2001.”

“We were doing the Iraqi no-fly zone enforcement operations 1991 to 2003.” Alex said mechanically, then stopped. “Sorry. I don’t know if you wanted to know.”

Kyle rolled his shoulders, voice sounding tired. “No, I did want to know. Like I said, war ethics are tough. But we should be able to track if Michael gets on the Time Agency’s radar, or if they know anything about the other two. We just have a lot of database work ahead of us.”

“Nope,” Alex said, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously. He pulled the receipt from the pocket of his borrowed sweats: “I’ve got an address.”

\--

The address was of a storage business in Hollywood, north of the Mescalero Apache reservation. Under it, Jared had written: “The code to get in is the most precious thing in the world.”

It was a four hour drive from Caulfield, but Kyle just insisted they go through a McDonald's to get lunch before they got there. Alex got a chicken sandwich and fries; Kyle got a McFlurry and an apple pie -- and also a chicken sandwich and fries.

“I’m a growing boy!” he said, mouth full of fries. Alex smiled for the first time that day.

They talked their way past the bored storage facility attendant with a story about Alex’s uncle on the rez needing them to pick-up his tax documents. 

Everything was outdoors, and the afternoon was hot enough no one much was around to see them. 

“So,” Kyle said, “what’s the most precious thing in the world?”

Alex looked at the combination lock on the unit. Rather than numbers, it had 7 dials with the letters of the alphabet.

Alex looked at it, thinking.

“‘Freedom’?” Kyle offered. “‘Security’? ‘Our home,’ all one word?”

Alex smiled: “Michael.”

He rolled up the door and found shelves and shelves of white banker’s boxes, all carefully labeled in Jared’s spiky hand.

“Here,” Kyle called out, hefting a box labeled “Adoption records.”

Then it clicked for Alex: “Before he went into the system, Michael was probably in some kind of pre-placement, a --”

“A group home, yeah.” Kyle said, “But my friend couldn’t find the records of any of the kids in Mr Ridley’s quote-un-quote care, so we couldn’t work backwards --”

“Because we didn’t know what name Michael had gone into the system with.”

Kyle flipped through the carefully labeled folders hanging from the internal rails of the box. “Here we go,” he said. “Sunnyside Group Home, Roswell, New Mexico. Case file from 1997.”

“Anything on the other kids in the placement?”

“Yeah," he said, reading aloud: “‘Two children with him, naked, mute, wandering in the desert outside of Roswell, NM. Found by a local trucker, Jim G. No names, verbal skills, or known family members.’” He flipped to a back page. “Another note: ‘Other two children adopted on December 15th, 1997 by Dave and Ann Evans.’”

Alex smiled: “Time to find a 1997 phone book.”

\--

Kyle insisted they could go to the Time Library to explore their phonebook collection the next morning, since Alex’s next mission wasn’t for another two days. He would be traveling to Sudan in 1998 to ensure the US did not receive or act-on the bad intelligence that led to the US Navy firing on and destroying the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical factory, destroying the plant responsible for producing half of the country’s pharmaceuticals and all of their anti-malaria pills. He had briefings on briefings to read tomorrow, which he could do in the Time Library. Kyle dropped Alex off at the downtown used bookstore in Roswell while he went to a local diner with a kitschy sign of a flying saucer popping out of the top of it to get his pie.

Alex went straight to the science fiction section, then when he saw the selection, went back to beg a basket from the bookseller.

At $.50 a book, he took entire shelves of Robin McKinley -- except for _Deerskin_ , because he did not need the nightmares that book brought -- and all of the other writers he lost in Flint’s purge. He left an hour later, just as they were closing, with two grocery bags full of books to lose himself in that night.

\--

Alex gasped the hot Sahelian air as he struggled to stand, glimpsing his father dragging his 8-year-old self around the corner of Khartoum’s Souq Al Arabi. If he remembered this day right -- August 12, 1998 -- he’d started crying when they had walked past the animal market, seen the baby rabbits in tight cages. His father had been humiliated by his weakness and had made him pick out a new leather belt in the market for that night’s beating.

His heart was racing, both at the sound of his own childhood sobs, and trying to get enough of the dry air when his lungs had last breathed the freezing temperatures of the time chamber. Flint had been unimpressed that he didn’t have a solution for the 1000 second delays, even after his interview with Jared and Marie. He’d been particularly pissed when he’d torn off in his Range Rover to check out the address Alex had given him on the decoy receipt -- and found himself right at the base of the New Mexico Rattler. Alex had had to threaten to report him to keep him from taking his anger out on Jared and Marie.

“Are you alright?” A woman asked in Sudanese Arabic. Alex nodded. He was wearing backpacker’s clothes, and probably looked heat-sick in the mid-morning sun.

“I’m fine, thank you very much,” he replied in the same dialect.

She smiled a little. “Sun too hot for you?”

He nodded and smiled back. “Which way to Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant?” he asked. 

She shrugged. 

“Thanks anyway. Is there a DHL nearby? I have to send a package before heading to the plant.”

She nodded and described how to get to the office. She handed him a bottle of water and told him to stay in the shade. He smiled and glanced over at her shop. There were a lot of practical things -- long, straight wooden spoons and walking sticks and wallets and CD cases. But in the back there was a little shelf of carvings, mostly animals that didn’t live in Sudan for tourists who couldn’t tell Khartoum from Kenya. But there was a carving that glinted in the warm yellow sunshine.

“Can I see that one?” he asked.

Her eyes lit up and after a bit of negotiation, she handed it to him. It was about the size of his palm, a reddish-brown piece of wood with subtle striations. But what made it special were the twin carved lines meandering down the middle.

“The Blue Nile and the White Nile?” he asked. 

She nodded.

“How much?”

After some friendly bartering, Alex slipped it in his back pants pocket. He started heading to the DHL shipping office just outside of the souq, in the bottom floor of one of the big hotels that served western and Saudi oilmen. As he walked, he pulled out his map and compass, figuring out how to get from there to the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant. He wondered if Michael knew how to use a compass to get around; if he was going to keep wandering off, some land-nav skills might save his life. Then Alex grimaced at himself. He couldn’t teach the kid to use a compass in under 17 minutes, no matter if Michael even wanted to talk to him if his plan to reunite him with Max and Isobel Evans failed for some reason.

The DHL staff were quick and professional. He paid full fare to send a letter to the attorney the Time Agency used, only to be opened after June 21, 2000, instructing them to send the enclosed postcard to his mother; he didn’t want to raise the attorney’s suspicion by having any more details about Michael, so all it read was: “I miss you. Talk to Michael about Evans. Love, Alex.” He also sent her a letter to his mother, which should arrive sometime around Christmas in 1998, telling her to expect those messages from the attorney and if she didn’t receive them, to look on page 137 of the Roswell Phonebook. He had to hope that Michael’s obsession with finding his siblings would help her pick apart the clues.

He didn’t know why Jared and Marie hadn’t introduced Michael to Isobel and Max on their own once his mother had reached out to them about fostering him. Maybe they were afraid of going into Roswell or contacting anyone off the reservation, thought it would attract the Time Agency’s attention. If Michael had let them see how miserable being without his siblings was making him the same way he’d shown that pain to Alex, Alex had no idea how they could have kept him from his family.

But Alex had so few details about their lives, and so little control; he had to hope they had had good reasons for not getting involved themselves but also wouldn’t stop Michael from making the connection to his past he so desperately wanted.

Packages sent, Alex re-focused on his actual mission: convince the local CIA agent in charge that his informant’s assessment that the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant was producing nerve gas was wrong. In his own timeline, the US Navy had fired 13 Tomahawk missiles from a ship in the Red Sea on August 20, 1998, destroying the plant. According to his briefing and Alex’s own vague memories, the public justification had been that 1) the plant was owned by Usama bin Ladin, 2) it was manufacturing nerve gas and 3) that it was payback for the Al-Qaeda bombings of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. After 1 night watchman was killed and dozens more injured in the blast, it turned out 1) the plant _wasn’t_ owned by Usama bin Ladin, 2) it _wasn’t_ manufacturing nerve gas, and 3) all destroying it did was reduce by half the supply of medicine to a country of 24 million people.

 _Just another everyday mission in the life of a Time Agent_ , Alex thought, and hailed a taxi to the plant.

\--

Alex opened his eyes to see a playground in the mid-afternoon. He was hunched beside a large concrete slide; he recognized it from his rare time on the Mescalero Apache reservation as the community center park -- a big open space to run around on briefly green grass, bordered by the main road. Alex remembered the community center from his time with his Mom here: it was a low-slung building with spaces for dance and art classes, and this playground. He looked around, listening to sounds of tears or fighting. Instead, he heard the soft creak of swings in the wind. He looked around -- there. A little boy with a mop of golden-tinged curls, kicking his feet under his swing. Alex looked around; he didn’t see anyone else nearby.

He stood, wondering if he looked more like the Winter Soldier than Black Widow this time.

“Hey, Michael,” he said and Michael’s face snapped up, a grin moving across it before he bit his lip and looked down. “Mind if I sit?” Alex asked. Michael waved to him and he sat down, rocking back and forwards on the swing.

“They’re late,” Michael said, kicking his feet in the tanbark under the swings.

“Who?” Alex asked.

Michael’s eyes lit up for a second before the look of worry returned. “Max and Isobel. My foster parents, they heard from you how to get to them, and they were supposed to be here at 3. I asked to meet them alone; Jared and Marie are in the community center. But it closes at 5pm.” 

Alex looked at his watch; 902 seconds. No hint at what time it was _now_.

Michael held out his wrist, a big glowing UFO kid's wristwatch showing: 3:45pm.

“It’s 2001?” Alex asked. 

Michael nodded.

“March 15th.”

“The Ides of March,” Alex said idly.

Michael glanced up.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an old Roman term, it means the 15th of the month. It’s famous because it was the day Julius Caesar was killed by Senators for declaring himself emperor.”

“Wish somebody would do that to Bush,” Michael grumbled.

Alex stifled a smile. “Yeah? Why don’t you like President Bush.”

Michael’s mouth twisted: “He won’t do anything for Indian Country and he doesn’t like sovereignty.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, “He’s pretty trash for Indian rights.”

Michael’s eyes snapped to a passing green truck; but it didn’t slow down, going around the corner of the park before disappearing behind the community center.

“I bet they just got lost. Where are Max and Isobel living?”

“Roswell,” Michael murmured, twisting his watch around his wrist. “Just Roswell, Sara didn’t give me their address. Their Mom didn’t want her to.”

“Hmm,” Alex said. “Do you know what you want to ask them?”

Michael stared at his sneakers; a different color from the ones he’d worn to Foster’s Ranch. “Why they didn’t take me too?” He said, looking up into Alex’s eyes, tears hovering in his eyes. “Was I so bad?”

“Oh, Michael,” Alex said. “You weren’t bad. I know you weren’t, because you aren’t.”

The boy took a breath, a hard breath; then another one. “Is that too mean to ask? I don’t want to hurt their feelings; I don’t want them to not like me.”

“Michael, can you look at me for a second?”

Michael looked up and Alex said, as firmly as he could: “You are a good person. You work hard. You try to take care of other people. Whether they like you or not has nothing to do with any of that. But if I had to guess, I think they’re going to think you’re pretty cool. After all, you’ve got a great glow-in-the-dark alien watch.”

Michael gave a wet laugh and turned around on the swing. “It lights up -- want to see?”

“Sure.” 

Just as Michael was showing Alex how to make the alien’s eyes flicker by pushing the button on the side just so, they heard the crunch of gravel in the parking lot and looked up, seeing a maroon minivan pulling to a stop. Before the tires had sunk into the gravel, the sliding door slammed open and two kids -- a pale blond girl and a dark haired tall boy -- came tumbling out.

“Michael!” The girl -- Isobel -- yelled, stumbled across the parking lot.

Michael glanced at Alex who jerked his head towards the kids with a smile and then Michael was off, _sprinting_ , arms out, meeting his siblings in the middle of the grass. He wrapped them up in the biggest hug his little body could make, and a second later they had all collapsed onto each other, the sound of their chattering and laughing reaching Alex on the late-spring wind. He glanced over at the driver of the car -- a well-put-together white woman, whose eyes were locked on the puppy pile in the grass in front of her minivan. When he tried to meet her eyes, they slid over him. 

After a minute, Michael pulled his siblings up by their arms, then gripped their hands and dragged them over to the swings. Alex stood up out of the swing, the plastic tapping him on the legs as it swung back. He stepped to the side, ready to get out of the way of their reunion play, when Michael cried: “Alex!”

Alex froze, looking at the two kids. The tall boy, Max, his face was streaked with tears, gripping Michael’s hand with his two small hands. Isobel was eyeing him warily, blond ponytail swinging behind her.

“Isobel, Max, this is Alex. He’s my --” And Michael frowned, trying to think of what to say, and settled on, “My friend.” He glanced at the other two. “Alex, these are Isobel and Max Evans. They’re my family.”

“Nice to meet you, Isobel and Max.”

“Alex is why we got to meet. He’s a secret, just like our powers, and no one but us can see him.”

Max’s brown eyes got huge: “He’s a _ghost_?”

Alex checked his watch: 103 seconds left. “Something like that. Michael can tell you more later, but as far as we can figure it out, I get to visit Michael once a year, for exactly 1000 seconds, then I’m pulled back to my time, in 2018.”

“Oh,” Max said, “Can you tell me who’s gonna win the World Series this year? My Dad would really love to know.”

Alex saw Michael flinch a little at the word ‘Dad’ but put on a brave face. Alex shook his head, smiling a little: “That wouldn’t be ethical. Michael knows a lot about how time travel works from his books, he can explain it to you.”

“The butterfly effect,” Michael said and the other two turned big, wondering eyes to him.

Isobel looked back at Alex first: “You look like a murderer.”

Alex felt like he’d had a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head, but Michael broke in: “Alex is only here for about a minute more -- see his watch? It counts down how long he’s here.”

Alex held up his wrist, showing them the timer which had just hit 61 seconds.

“I don’t get to see him for another year,” Michael said, and Alex was surprised to hear there was real sadness in his voice. “But he’ll be back next year.”

He looked at Alex, “I know I always ask for something, but,” he looked at Isobel and Max, tugging their hands even tighter to him. “I just can’t think of anything else I need right now. So, next time, can you bring me something that makes you as happy as this?”

“Sure, Michael.” Alex said. “Isobel and Max, it was nice to meet you. Me going back in time, it can be -- it can be a little scary looking. I can go over there,” he pointed to the concrete slide, “I can go over there to do it if you’d like me to.”

“No,” Isobel said. “I want to see.”

Alex winced a little; he felt like he was under inspection and being found wanting. “Ok,” he said. “I’m going to sit on this swing -- it’s a little hard on me, when I travel in time. Before I forget, here, Michael -- catch.”

He pulled the trinket from Sudan with the interweaving rivers out of his pocket, tossing it gently underhand to Michael. He caught it and grinned, putting it in his pocket. Then his face got a bit worried.

“Does it hurt?” Michael asked, looking worried. 

Alex shook his head, smiling: “Some, but it’s worth it. Getting to help.” He glanced at his watch; 21 seconds left.

“Ok, you all need to be at least 6 feet away.” They took a big step back, Michael wrapping his arms around their waists.

“Bye, Michael,” Alex said.

“Bye, Alex,” Michael said, Isobel and Max echoing him.

Alex took a breath of the fresh, clean air, and closed his eyes, trying to keep his face serene as he stopped being able to breath, as the feeling of the boot on his chest hit, as the hand over his face yanked him back into his timestream.

When he opened his eyes in the time chamber, there were two dozen Sudanese men, women, and children smiling and clapping for him. He looked around, and found Kyle. He nodded once and the other man grinned, flashing him a thumbs-up.

Then his eyes slid to Flint and his father, the only two people in the room not smiling.

He took a breath, and as Flint made his announcement asking everyone to leave, Alex Manes began to strip.


	9. That takes you further every day

“So, in 2002 and yesterday, Michael asked what makes you happy.” Kyle said, voice slightly strained in the pre-dawn light as his feet pounded on the sidewalk beside Alex.

Alex shook his head, picking up the pace a little; they were running a circuit through Kyle’s neighborhood as the sun came up purple, gold and scarlet across the desert sky. Alex had suggested it, since running had used to be one of the things that kept his mind quiet before his injury; now it was a mix of uncomfortable and irritating, but he hoped, someday, it might feel good again.

Alex’s breath was even: they were on the second mile of five and his heart was running steady and easy in his chest.

“He said, ‘Next time, can you bring me something that makes you as happy as this?’ And he was talking about being reunited with his siblings for the first time in his life that he could remember.” Alex scowled: “I don’t think anything’s ever made me feel as happy as he looked just then, Kyle. And I don’t want to lie to him or disappoint him.”

Kyle huffed, arms pumping to keep pace with Alex: “So, what do you want to bring him?”

“I don’t _know_!” Alex said, voice a little louder than he meant. Then he grumbled: “I don’t know what makes me happy, ok? Like, I _like_ things, sure. But the whole point, of this, of all of this,” he waved to his body, encompassing his strength, his leg, the alien tech embedded in his chest, “Is to be effective; not to be happy.”

He glanced over at Kyle, who looked like he was in physical pain; Alex chose to believe it was because the man was out of shape and not a reaction to his words.

After a pause, Kyle asked: “Are you going to tell Michael that?”

“No.” 

“Why not?”

Alex frowned: “Because -- I think he looks up to me. And I don’t want _him_ to be like this. I want _him_ to be happy. And he asked what ‘makes’ me happy; not what ‘made’ me happy, so I can’t tell him about the first time I ever met someone I’d saved and how good that felt. And he didn’t say what ‘would make’ me that happy, so I could tell him about imagining getting married or having kids or even, just like, owning my own place. He asked what _makes_ me this happy. And I just --” He shook his head, setting his jaw: “I just don’t know.”

“Well,” Kyle puffed, taking the inside curve around the block to make his route just that little bit smaller. “You have some choices. You can lie to a literal child; I do not recommend this, if only because he’s a smart cookie and will probably roast you for trying while feeling betrayed by his fairy god assassin. You can try to redefine ‘happiness’ to include some of the things that you currently only feel like you ‘like.’” He pushed himself ahead of Alex, jogging backwards to look him in the eye and forcing him to slow his pace. “Or you can spend the next three days before your mission experimenting with what makes you happy.”

Alex bit his lip, slowing his pace to think. “What if I come back and say something like ‘going to the souq’ or ‘riding a motorcycle’ he’s going to think I am undervaluing his major life change?”

“I don’t think he would.” Kyle said, gratefully matching the rhythm of his steps, “I think he has a pretty good sense of you and knows you value and respect him. But I agree, telling a 13-year-old boy that riding a motorcycle gives you the most joy in life is not a great plan, unless you want to pop-in on him in the middle of a dirt bike race at 14.”

Alex shuddered: “I want him sitting in cars with child-appropriate seat-belt extenders until he’s old enough to drive.”

Kyle huffed a laugh as they turned another block’s corner: “I don’t know if that’s realistic, Alex.”

“You’re not realistic,” Alex muttered.

“Very true. But we do work at someplace called the Time Agency, so a little bit of hopeful science fictional thinking is probably allowed.”

Alex sped up punitively, but Kyle was smiling now even as he wheezed: “Want to get coffee at the Crashdown Cafe after we clean-up at home?”

“Is that the one with the weird alien theme?”

“It’s Roswell, you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Alex waved his hands: “The one with the big UFO on top.”

“Yep.” There was something suspicious about his tone, but Alex didn’t know from whence the shadiness came.

“Do they have hot cocoa?”

“They do.”

“I’m betting they also have some kind of sickeningly sweet pastry you want.”

“They also have horribly bland self-punishment oatmeal, Captain Manes. So we can both be happy.”

Alex stifled a smile as they slowed to a walk along the downtown sidewalk, dodging a delivery-person pushing a dolly of blue milk crates. “Ok, so if I use the time between now and my Jordan mission to come up with a better answer to Michael’s request. Where do you think I should start?”

“I actually had an idea about that. My friend who works at Crashdown has been going through some big life changes recently and might have some ideas.”

“Your _waitress friend_ wants to give me life advice?”

Kyle narrowed his eyes: “Being shitty to waitresses is really more of Flint and the Colonel’s thing than yours, don’t you think?”

Alex held up his hands, cheeks heating. “You’re right. My bad.”

“It was,” Kyle said, still glaring. “But she’s also a biomedical researcher with three degrees who’s helping out at her father’s business while she’s between grants. But even if she was ‘just’ a waitress, Liz Ortetcho could teach anyone a thing or two.”

“Point received, Kyle.”

“Just making sure.”

\--

Kyle opened the door to the cafe and Alex scanned the room: a dark-haired woman in antennae was serving coffee to a person hunched over at the counter in a very bulky coat and a big black cowboy hat with the heels of their cowboy boots propped up on the spokes of the stool; a sheriff's deputy with dark hair was reading the paper in a booth across from Maria, the woman from the Wild Pony. Aside from another dark-haired woman and an older man in the kitchen, there was no one else there as the sun rose over downtown.

Kyle ushered him over to a booth where Alex could see the rest of the restaurant and had the red brick wall at his back.

The woman walked over, smiling brightly: “Kyle! Surprised to see you up so early.”

Kyle mock-glowered at Alex: “My housemate wanted to go for a run.”

Alex turned to her, holding out his hand: “My name’s Alex; Kyle was just singing your praises.”

“Oh really,” she said, half smiling down at the slightly-flustered Kyle. “What kinds of praises?”

“You have a minute to chat, Liz?” Kyle asked, glancing back at the nearly-empty cafe.

“Sure, I’ll grab my break now. What can I get Rosa and Papi whipping up for you?” She held her pencil over her notepad; Alex noticed its eraser had been replaced with a bobbling alien head. He wondered if Michael would like one of those.

“I’d like some plain oatmeal and a hot cocoa if you have it,” Alex said.

“Sure -- Kyle, you want the double-whipped Belgian waffles?”

“You know me so well.” Kyle said while Alex made a face.

Liz brought the order back to the kitchen and snagged two glasses of water. She yanked off her antennae as she headed back to their booth, sitting down beside Alex with a sigh.

“How can I help?”

Kyle glanced at Alex who began to trace complex designs into the cold condensation on the nubbly side of his plastic water glass.

“I can’t really talk about my job,” he started. She nodded her understanding and he gave her a small smile: “But I’m having an, intense week. It’s making me rethink things. Kyle’s been nice enough to put me up and put up with me while I’m going through it. And a, a friend challenged me yesterday to tell him something that made me really, really happy. And he gave me some time, but I need to have an answer in a few days, and,” he shrugged one shoulder. “And Kyle wanted to eat sweets and said I might enjoy meeting you.”

Liz’s smile was getting bigger by the minute. “I know those weeks. They’re kind of like the first time you get glasses, or go on birth control. Everything has a sense to it that it hadn’t had before. But it’s disorienting.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I mean, I wouldn’t know from those two examples, but that sounds right.”

“See,” Kyle said sotto voce, “Liz is brilliant.”

Liz smacked Kyle’s arm with a pleased grin.

“Oatmeal’s up!” Called a man’s voice, and Liz stood to go and grab it.

On the way back, she pulled a college-ruled notebook from under the counter and brought it back along with a pen. 

She slid the plain oatmeal to Alex and sat next to him, giving him space to eat but also oriented so they could look at the notebook at the same time.

“So, do you know how to use Pugh matrices?”

“No?” 

She grinned: “Ok, so they’re a quantitative decision-making tool I learned in grad school.”

“Kind of like a threat matrix?” Alex asked, thinking of the military assessment diagrams for allocating resources on the battlefield.

She tilted her head: “I’ve never used one of those, but maybe.”

She flipped past pages and pages of what looked like scientific notations and diagrams and complex timelines and observations to find a blank page. She drew a few vertical lines down the middle.

Then she took a breath: “Taking a step back, I’m guessing the reason Kyle wanted to introduce us is I’m not really about _feeling feelings_ a lot of the time. I tend to like using the scientific method; good, bad, or indifferent, that’s how I work.”

“Bad, Liz. It’s bad,” Kyle cut in. “You should feel feelings or they’re going to pop-out like jack-in-the-box puppets and mess up your life.”

“Hard disagree. Anyway, with this matrix, we put your goals at the top. Some stuff you care about.”

“Like?”

Kyle jumped in: “You could put that you care about freedom, learning, abundance, growth.”

“Or whatever _Alex’s_ actual goals are,” Liz said quellingly. “Then we’ll list possible activities and you give each of them a score, 1 if it doesn’t further the goal, 5 if it furthers it perfectly, 3 if it sort of furthers it. Then, when you’re done, you sum up all of the scores for the activities, and see which ones you rate higher.”

The woman Alex guessed was Rosa came out from the kitchen with a heaping plate of Belgian waffles. As she was putting it on the table, Alex muttered to Kyle: “This might be even a little too Type A for me.”

Kyle shrugged. “Doesn’t hurt to try.” Then, louder: “Ok, Captain, what are 5 goals you have for yourself.”

“Uh,” Alex said, taking a big gulp of water and feeling Liz and Kyle’s eyes on him. “Let me think.”

He closed his eyes, trying to get a little space. He heard, just for a moment, a familiar sounding sigh. But before he could place it Kyle was saying: “Hey, man, it’s ok, you don’t have to --”

“Kyle, just give him a second,” came Liz’s voice.

Then the sound of Kyle chewing.

He could hear Liz gently doodling on the margins of the notebook.

He didn’t want to say he didn’t really _have_ goals for himself. Those had always been set by the Colonel, by the Time Agency, by the Congressional oversight committee that directed them. Learn languages to be a better Time Agent. Be strong to be a better Time Agent. Learn to kill to be a better Time Agent.

But then he thought about the conversation he’d had with Kyle about what he wanted for Michael. And it was easier, thinking about what he’d want for a 12-year-old. He’d want him to have the freedom to be someone he liked; he’d want him to be safe and stable enough to be able to make free choices; he’d want him to be independent but able to rely on trustworthy people. He’d want him to work to help others and also be happy in his own skin.

_Well, if I can’t figure out what I want, I can just fill this out using what I would want for Michael as an adult. See if it works._

He started to talk quickly, before he could lose the thread: “Ok, so my goals: help other people, be independent, safe, free, connected, and,“ he paused but forced himself to say it, “happy in my own skin.”

Liz was scribbling so fast he heard the paper crumple under her pen nub, but he kept going. “Some big activities: getting my own place, getting my own mode of transport, buying books, keeping working on my projects outside of work, keeping up my languages, and,” he paused, “maybe traveling to someplace where we’re not at war. I’ve always wanted to go to Oman again, to see the screen and white zebra-striped mountains and hear the language of the birds.”

“The _what_ mountains? The _what_ language?” Said Liz, still frantically scribbling.

Kyle interrupted: “Alex can wow you with his super-human awesomeness some other time, Liz.”

Liz gave him a smile that was so warm he felt it down to his toes, rising back up in his face as his own returning smile. “I’d like that -- I’m here pretty much 6am to 10pm, so whenever you’re around, I’m likely to be here.”

Alex said: “Kyle said you were a biomedical engineer -- any thoughts on how to get more scientists involved in research to find vaccines for tropical diseases?”

Liz’s eyes lit up as she finished writing the last word. “Actually, yes --”

“And you, Alex, can come and talk science with Liz any other time. But don’t you think I don’t see you trying to avoid finishing this.”

“Fine,” Alex said, pulling the notebook to him and taking a breath. He thought about Michael’s smile at seeing Isobel and Max, about Dr Guerin’s fingers on his wrist, and began to write.

\--

Alex ended up prioritizing working on his outside projects -- legible to him and Kyle but not to Liz or the listening diner as helping Michael. Then came getting a mode of transport, as being necessary to being independent and getting to places where he could help people. Then getting his own place. They spent the rest of breakfast playing on PadMapper on their phones, looking up local rentals. Alex wanted someplace with two bedrooms that was accessible and close enough to the base he didn’t have to really think about commuting. But he held off on making any appointments -- “It just feels fast; let’s wait until after the next mission,” -- but when Kyle got up to go to the bathroom and Liz went to handle the incoming rush of customers, Rosa slid into the booth beside him.

“So I hear you’re getting a car.” She had bright red lipstick, an eyebrow piercing, and a smirk that made him want to introduce her to the Colonel just to see in what order of cuts she’d eat him alive.

“A truck maybe?” Alex replied, pulling up a list of local Ford dealerships.

She pressed her small palm across his screen, clicking her chipped-nail-polished fingernails against the thin glass of the green and grinning at him: “I feel like you want a sport bike.”

Alex laughed, turning to face her in the booth: “Yeah? And what makes you think I want a motorcycle?”

She looked him up and down, grinning: “With mi hermana perfecta Liz earlier y Kyle, mi hermano muy honrado, just now, you listed all kinds of good things that would make you happy. Good, honorable, upstanding things.” Her smirk turned a little darker. “But there’s only two kinds of people who order oatmeal here. People who hate their bodies, and people who use their bodies _hard_. You look like the latter.”

He nodded, eyes slipping past the bad girl costume and to the mind churning under the surface. 

“So, what is it? Rock climbing? Special operator? Skydiving? Dom? Sub? Switch? Paratrooper? SCUBA instructor? It’s _something._ You look like a sensation junky.”

His laugh got louder and he caught Liz’s grin as she handled the morning rush. Kyle was dawdling over by the Sheriff’s deputy, who was holding up the brick wall near the entrance. Maria had moved to the counter, was whispering urgently to the man in the oversized coat and the cowboy hat who was on his 5th cup of coffee from Alex’s casual count. He’d gone the entire morning without moving or so much as glancing over at them, just hunching over his cup as Rosa refilled it with a teasing smile.

“What about me ordering plain oatmeal makes you think I’m a sensation junkie?”

“Takes one to know one, chico. And I think you ordered the oatmeal because you didn’t want to get distracted by feeling good, if this wasn’t a place you were safe.” And _that_ hit him like a baton to the forehead. “Anyway,” she said and rolled up her sleeve, showing a richly colored sleeve. “Got any tattoos?”

“Yeah,” he said, taking off his watch. “Got a UV light?”

Her eyes brightened. “Freaky! I like it. One sec.”

She hurtled towards the kitchen, Alex guessed to some kind of apartment above. He was betting she was both Liz and Kyle’s sister, though they didn’t share a last name; but Rosa didn’t seem the kind of call just anyone but family hermana or hermano.

Rosa dodged and weaved back through the growing crowd, ducking under Liz’s platter of plates and avoiding the older man’s good natured shout for her to come back and help out in the kitchen.

She flopped in the booth next to him and flicked on a flashlight with purple lights, sweeping it across the skin of his inner wrist. Just like it had in Dr Guerin’s garage, the colors flashed like blinking lights against his skin, going invisible again when she clicked off the light.

“ _Cool_.” She said. “See? Sensation junkie.”

“What’s Rosa trying to get you into?” Kyle said, sidling up and sitting next to Rosa. He bump her with his hip until she moved deeper into the booth.

“She’s making the case I should get a motorcycle.”

Kyle tipped his head to either side. “For anyone else, I’d start quoting fatality statistics and tell you the nickname for bikers in every ER I’ve ever worked in has been ‘organ donors,’ but you know? For you? Everything else you do is so dangerous, it’s not going to be owning a Kawasaki that kills you.”

“Dark, baby bro, very dark,” Rosa said approvingly. Kyle shot him a glance to see his reaction but he just shrugged; if Kyle’s family tree was complicated, it was better than the bouquet of assholes who made-up the Manes tree.

“Ready to go?”

Alex slid his phone out from under Rosa’s nails before handing it back to her: “In case you ever want company adding onto that sleeve.”

“Ooh,” she said, quickly adding her contact, “Baby boy’s got cojones.”

Alex snorted; he didn’t think anyone had ever called him ‘baby boy’ or ‘baby’ anything since he was a literal baby.

“I texted myself too -- and I have an appointment tomorrow night to get my back touched up, so you better bet I’ll drag you along for that.”

“I look forward to it,” Alex said.

On their way out the door, Kyle shook his head. “Of all the people I introduced you to, I would not have bet you would connect best with Rosa Ortecho-Valenti.”

Alex shrugged. “She’s right about me -- I didn’t think to describe it that way, but I _do_ like intense stuff. Intensity is one of the things I like about my job -- new sounds, smells, experiences, people. Figuring out how to fit into all of that is one of the times I feel most alive.”

“That’s -- that’s really good, Alex.” Kyle paused: “I just wanted to say -- I’m really proud of you, for doing all of this. Most people never change their lives, much less anyone else’s life. And you’re digging into a level and depth of crap that most people never have to imagine, much less experience and then excavate. I’m just -- it’s a big thing and I want you to know I’m proud of you.”

Alex ducked his head, cheeks hot. “We’ll see how proud you are when I get an alien tattoo with Rosa tomorrow night.”

Kyle paused, and then in a slightly stiffer tone said: “What you do with your body is your choice.”

“So you’ll give me a ride to the motorcycle lot after work?”

“Apparently.”

\--

The day of the next mission, Alex rode his new bright red sport bike onto the Time Agency base while Kyle followed behind in his truck looking constipated about it. Alex had made sure to wear a long-sleeved black henley for this mission so his new tattoo was protected from both the sun and prying eyes. It was nestled in the crook of his elbow: a little flying saucer with a smiling alien popping its head out the side-window. Rosa liked it so much she got a sister of it on her hip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to all of the lovely folks at the Roswell 18+ Discord for all of their kinds comments!
> 
> Also, if anyone is interested in a kind of spoiler-y description of the process I'm using to write this fic, aewriting kindly asked me about it on tumblr and you can read my craft essay here: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/618156609307344896/okay-if-you-dont-mind-could-you-tell-us-more


	10. or so I share

Alex opened his eyes into the bright, harsh Jordanian sun in the courtyard of the Kempinski Hotel beside the Dead Sea. He was tucked into the corner of the tall black wooden frame concealing the pylons of the luxury hotels outdoor dining area. The dawning light was just touching the Israel side across the salty-slick water and the smell of the Dead Sea was rich in the air.

He stood, brushing the windblow salt off the back of his tailored suit pants. He was trying to look like an American spy, and he figured he was succeeding: a slim messenger bag with a hidden compartment in the bottom, black clothing inappropriate to the climate but vainly tailored; and a look of arrogance he fitted over his features like a mask. 

He’d come here 12 years ago when his father had spoken at a secret multilateral conference on temporal-military interventions. Alex mostly remembered trying to look attentive while counting down the hours until he could see if he could really float in the salt-soaked water of the Dead Sea.

He swaggered up to the front desk and a woman from the Philippines greeted him.

“I’d like to book a tour of Petra -- is that possible?”

“Of course -- one of our drivers can take you there and connect you with a tour company. Would you like the overnight package or a day-trip?”

“Overnight, please. Thank you.”

He paid the price in pre-2006 cash and went to go hide out in the bathroom to avoid the possibility of running into his 16-year-old self. He looked himself in the body-length mirror and frowned; he looked tired. He wondered if that was new, or very, very old.

He’d slept well enough last night. He'd spent the evening with the laughing, snarking whirlwind that was Rosa Ortecho-Valenti -- “hyphenated exclusively for shit-stirring purposes” she’d said and then refused to explain what she meant -- and he hadn’t _known_ you could be over 30 and still want to fight the system, still be fucking furious that the world was how it was.

He’d thought he was the only one that felt that way.

Rubbing a little color into his cheeks, he strode into the lobby, matching-up with his driver at the front desk and settling into a quiet 3 and a half hour trip after a few polite greetings.

This was a quieter mission than usual; according to Tara Hedayati’s YouTube channel and IMDB, this was the morning in 2006 when she’d started her week of hiking through the backcountry of Petra. It was when she’d decided to quit her MPA program in International Economic Development at Columbia and join the Iranian film industry and bringing a Kurdish voice and influence to the entire industry. Alex was here to try to convince her to make another choice.

He flipped open his Lonely Planet guidebook, tracing the map of the region, over across the land border with Iraq. If he did this job right, the dashed border around Kurdistan would be a solid line when he got home.

He looked out over the rough ridges with their little tucked-in places of greenness that surrounded the highway; it was one of his favorite things about desert country, seeing how life always finds a way. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, giving the fresh tattoo time to air out and away from the irritation of the henley. And he thought about that list he’d made with Liz Ortecho.

Two hours in, the land was getting flatter and flatter and he was grateful the hired car had AC. 

“Do you mind if we stop?" the driver asked. "This place sells the best dates in Jordan." Alex smiled, and they pulled into a tourist trap. If he had to bet, the driver’s family ran it and the driver was hoping Alex would, in a small way, add his contribution to the country’s economic development.

Normally, Alex would have sat in the car, looking stern until they got back on the road. But he’d seen Michael’s eyes light-up when he brought him the map of the two great rivers from Sudan, and he hadn’t figured what else to bring him from this trip.

Alex replied in the Levantine dialect: “I’d love to taste the best dates in the Middle East.”

The man flashed him a grin. Alex had found, over a lifetime in the region, the fastest way to start a good-natured fight in a multinational group was to comment that one country’s dates were better than the others. And praising someone’s home country’s dates in an honest way was a quick path to an easier conversation.

He stepped out of the car, pulling himself up by the door, and heading inside the roadside shop.

It was full of orientalist kitsch, pyramids and belly-dancing bangles and little figurines of the Kaaba and camels. He wanted something more interesting.

He bent down, looking in the back of a glass case lit by LED lights flickering on as the teenager running the shop leaned down to plug them in.

“Could I see that Hand of Fatima?” he asked in the same dialect, pointing to the small olive wood carving of a woman’s hand held flat.

“Sure you don’t want to call it a ‘hamsa’?” the teenager muttered as he bent to open the case without getting off his stool. Alex blinked and didn’t reply, holding his hand out for the carving. It was well-made, carved from a single branch. The symbol was one of the few that both Jewish and Muslim women wore; most Jewish women called it a ‘hamsa’ while most Muslim women called it a ‘Hand of Fatima.’ The teenager was needling to see if he was Jewish; whether because he had a grudge or he was bored and curious, Alex had no idea. But he tended to call it whatever he thought the person he was talking to called it, which is why he’d called it the Hand of Fatima. Also, “hamsa” meant “5” in Arabic and he hadn’t wanted 5 of anything in that jewelry case, particularly since he had a long hike in front of him.

“How much?”

\--

The entrance to Petra reminded Alex of the blood red and twisting Antelope Valley slot canyons in Navajoland that he’d hiked through with his mother. _Same geology; different continent._

He walked into a crook in the deep-pink cliff face, the walls of the canyon rising up around him. Sometimes as close as a few meters, sometimes as far apart as a dozen, the aqueducts the Nabateans had carved into the finely-grained sandstone still trickling with water that the overnight rains two millennia later. They were early in the tourist season, so there were only a few dozen people on this part of the trail.

He scanned each of their faces, but from the timestamp on the YouTube video, he would be hanging around the Treasury for about an hour before Tara Hedayati arrived. With her mane of curly hair, her cut-off shorts, and her massive backpack, she would be easy to distinguish from the middle aged pasty Germans, prim Swedes, and garrulous Russian tourists who surrounded him.

He took the long hike slowly, enjoying the heavy shadows the high canyon walls threw across the trail, the sharp smell of water in the desert all around him.

“You know, this isn’t a fortress,” a woman beside him commented. He glanced over: big hair, big backpack, sensible boots. _I guess the YouTube timestamp was off_.

“It’s a necropolis,” he said and she flashed him an assessing look.

“Someone read the guidebook,” she said.

He nodded: “I like to do my research.”

“So,” she said, falling into step beside him, “Mr Researcher, tell me more.”

“What about? The rocks? The culture? That UNESCO demand all of the bedu people stop living here because their families made it less ‘historic’”?

This time the look was closer to approving than assessing.

“How about how you think you’re going to get anywhere in Jordan in March without a real water bottle.”

Alex opened up his messenger bag, revealing 4 large canteens; hidden under them in a sealed compartment was the handworked leather bag with $250,000 USD in pre-2006 Iraqi dinar he had to make his case to her. But that was for later. “Like I said, I do my research. I just don’t always look the part.”

She sniggered. “Yeah? And what part are you looking.”

“Hmm,” Alex said, settling his bag back on his shoulder. He could see a narrow gap in the canyon wall ahead; _that should be the entrance to the Treasury._

“I think I look like an American spy.”

She laughed out loud at that, glancing around at all of the tourists before lowering her voice conspiratorially. “And are you, Mr Research?”

“Sure,” he said easily, and she took a big step back, hands in front of her. He shrugged: “What, you’re who I’m here to talk to.”

Her eyebrows had entirely disappeared into her wild mass of curls.

“Why on _earth --_ ”

“Shh,” he said, pointing to the gap in the canyon wall, “You’re going to miss it.”

“Miss what?” She said, still keeping a careful distance.

“The reason this was declared one of this was declared one of the 7 Wonders of the New World.”

Her voice was vague when she muttered: “You’re just here because you watched _Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade_ too many times as a child,” but her eyes were on the way their view through the slot in the canyon slowly expanded the closer they walked to it.

Alex kept his voice quiet and hushed. “You know this, but it wasn’t really a treasury --”

“It’s a tomb,” she said. And they stepped into the grand open area at the base of it, wide enough to fit a half-dozen houses and entirely flat. She traced her hand through the air, covering and then revealing the apex of the massive columns, the 2 millennia-old carvings and complex architecture that made a massive temple appear to emerge from the raw stone. “See those pockmarks at the top? That’s from when the British soldiers tried to break the pot at the apex of the carving,” her face fell to a sneer, “They thought it had treasure inside of it.”

Alex shook his head. “My people, they’re from deserts like this. In the American Southwest. Our ancestors’ places were defiled, just like this. But none of them are UNESCO sites.”

“That’s just because the US won’t cooperate enough with UNESCO inspectors to earn the designation,” she snapped back.

He tilted his head: “True.”

They walked quietly towards the pillars, the deep pits in front of them covered by thinly-woven metal grates. There were coffee cups and dinars scattered across them, like tourists couldn't decide if they were trash cans or wishing wells.

He looked up into the thick darkness on the interior of the Treasury. “I think about this place, sometimes. When I think about the war.”

He leaned down, tapping his leg with the bone of his knuckle so it rang out and earned him a few ugly, pitying glances.

“I think about what it would mean, if we honored the dead in this way. If we honored the dead in some way that cost so much money, that it wasn’t worth it to kill in war anymore. That we could walk through a place like this, every day, on the way to our homes and markets, and remember those we’d lost. Maybe we’d stop fighting so much.”

“Says the man from the country bringing all of the fighting to peaceful people.”

“You think Russia is without war? Iran? Yemen? KSA?”

“The United States is the number one exporter of small arms, so _yes_ I believe you are the ones who bring war.”

He glanced at her, but her face was still turned to the architecture. And there wasn’t anger in her voice, but sadness; a raw, deep sadness he understood.

“And sometimes war is necessary. When the lines Gertrude Bell drew to design the modern Middle East cut through nations, countries, families --”

She huffed a laugh: “You’re just quoting my thesis.”

“Your grant proposal to the Millennium Development Corporation, actually,” he said. “‘But even in cases where there is a just cause for war, there is always a more just cause for peace. And economic development, in many cases, is the difference between war and peace. People with jobs, prosperous nations with low economic inequality, are less likely to fall into war.’”

She rolled her eyes, hand going on her hip, finally pulling her eyes away from the ancient edifice in front of her: “What’re you here for, Mr Research?”

“Like I said, I’m here to talk to you. And, if you like what I have to say, to fund your proposal.”

Her eyes got wide and she bit her lips, wrapping her arms around her waist.

“What’s it going to cost me?”

Alex looked around and lowered his voice: “About 10 years of your life.”

She took a step back, eyes wide. Alex tried to keep his body neutral, unmoving. “If you take the money -- which is two and a half times what you applied for initially -- you will finish your masters at Columbia and spend the next 10 years doing what you said you would: building an entire economy in Kurdistan around ancient-site tourism. The money will let you train guides, buy rights to shops beside current sites, market them to rich country tourists.”

“Who’s going to want to come to Kurdistan if the US is still carpet-bombing Baghdad?”

“The same people who would spend millions of dollars stealing religious artifacts from Iraq or come here because they saw it in a Steven Spielberg movie.” He said, gesturing to the long line of tourists waiting to take photos with their big, bulky black cameras. _No iPhones yet._

He lowered his voice. “In the next 10 years, there’s going to an incredible rise in social media -- people will start to see the world in ways they never have before. People are going to rise up, and sometimes they’ll win against dictators my country has helped fund or ignored because they played nice-enough for our purposes; sometimes they will lose. But imagine a prosperous Kurdistan with 10 years of rich, influential tourists making memories there. Boeing 787s packed full of Evangelical biblical tourists and Airbus A380s full of Koranic history tourists from KSA and Indonesia and 747s of Torah scholars from Tel Aviv and Krakow. When the time comes, with your careful guidance, there will be more than enough people and connections to support an autonomous state, to draw young men into your economy from Syria and Iraq and Iran who otherwise might have fallen to more violent lives. You can build the Masters programs in archeology, the Doctoral programs of Women of the Abrahamic religions that you outlined in your proposal. Use education tourists to fund actual schools, start-up hubs -- a real, 21st century economy.”

She shook her head: “You’re spinning me a dream.”

“I am,” he said, and she narrowed her eyes. “It’s _your_ dream, Tara. The one you wrote in your thesis. The one you spun for the grant committee for the Millennium Development Cooperation. It’s _your_ dream.”

“I was turned down,” she said, “No one wants to fund a 25-year-old Kurdish woman from Erbil.” She shook her head. “I have an offer for a film starting next week in Tehran. I’d have access to money, status, a platform --”

“A platform built on looks in an industry that is not known for supporting young women with strong political views.” He took a breath. “If you don’t want that dream, that’s fine; development work isn’t for everyone. But if you do,” and he squatted down to open his messenger bag on the metal grate, pulling out his canteens. He laid them on their sides, one-two-three-four. Then he pulled out the leather bag hidden under them, unlatching the flap so she could see inside.

“What the _fuck_ ,” She hissed, slapping the flap closed with her hand. “You looking to get robbed? That’s killing money right there.”

Alex shook his head. “What, you think those German tourists are going to come over here and hustle us? Where are they going to spend Iraqi dinars around here?”

“Colonizers find a way,” she whispered. But her hand hadn’t left the flap since she closed it.

“Seriously, what strings are attached. Nobody _does_ this.”

Alex started packing his canteens back into his bag, pointedly not repacking the leather satchel.

“Sure they do. The CIA does it all the time.”

She began to shake her head and he said: “I’m not CIA. I’m not NSA or KGB or MSS or MI6. I’m not from any 3-letter agency. Where I work only has two letters and I’m not going to tell you them.”

He slung his bag around to his back and held his hand out. “No strings. If you take this money, you will never see me again. No grant reports to write, no board to answer to -- though I suggest you _do_ create a board, you _do_ write reports, because unaccountability breeds abuse. But it’ll be your choice.”

“I need -- I need to think about this.”

Alex checked his watch. “I’ve got 20 more hours. Want to hike in?”

They spent the next 5 hours hiking through Petra, arguing and lecturing, going from 1967 borders to trucial states, from Abdul Aziz to Abdul Nasser, through wind worn pink peaks and hand carved graves, cut into the living stone. It was -- invigorating and enlivening and everything Alex loved about his job. Then Alex headed back to the entrance, leaving the leather satchel with her. He found a driver and paid double to get him to drive him down to Aqaba. 

He fell asleep in a no name hotel to the sound of the Red Sea, and the constant call of gulls. He woke to his watch counting down from 15. He made sure he had his Hand of Fatima and closed his eyes.

\--

Alex opened his eyes in a sun soaked living room. He was sitting on a thick shag rug, as deep a red as you can get before it becomes brown, his back to a wood paneled wall and a rickety TV stand at his elbow. Michael was laying on his back on the couch under a big bay window, throwing a shiny ball the size of an apricot up in the air, making it do a loop with his powers, then catching it in his other hand.

There were beautiful, original line drawings of the mesas and Sierra Blanca and other sites around the rez, done in a careful hand with light water coloring to give the shades of the sky and the reds and yellows of the rocks. Alex winced inside, to think of Marie’s artist’s hands in manacles.

“Hey Alex,” Michael said, voice quiet. “It’s 2003, June.” He was tossing the metal ball to himself, catching the sunlight with it every time it arced and zigzagged and sprung through the air. Alex peeked up and was relieved to see the window looked out over a large, empty backyard; _no chance someone will see him using his powers then_.

“Marie and Jared are out getting groceries; I finished my homework for AP Physics.” His voice was soft; not sad, but not relaxed either. Like he was going through a checklist in his head.

“Wow, AP Physics. That’s really advanced.”

A brief flash of a smile; then the tension returned. He glanced Alex’s way, then back at the wood-paneled ceiling.

He took a long, hard, fortifying breath. “I have something to tell you. And if you don’t want to see me anymore, I understand.”

Alex frowned. “Michael, I don’t think there’s anything you could --”

“Just let me say it!” He said, voice getting high for a second. Then he schooled his features, tossing the metal ball up in the air again and again.

“Michael, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s fine --”

“I’m gay!” He shouted and the ball stopped, just, stopped, hovering in mid-air. It started to spin glacially, then wobbled as Michael’s breathing kicked up. Then it spun a little faster, like Michael had goosed it, then another wobble and --

“Me too.” Alex said, and for the first time: “I’m gay too. It’s ok.”

The ball arced gently to land in Michael’s hand as he sat-up, putting two good feet on the shag rug and leaning forward. His eyes were wide: “You _are?_ ”

“Yeah?”

“Since _when?_ ”

“Since,” Alex paused; he’d never talked about this and he wasn’t going to start talking about it with a 13-year-old. “Since always. Some people find out later, some people go through a lot of different ideas of who they are, but just for me, I knew forever.”

“I didn’t know you could be gay and an adult. Like, there aren’t any on TV, none of the teachers are, there aren’t any on the rez --”

“There are, but they just aren’t out of the closet.”

Michael paused, considering that. “I thought I couldn’t be, because I kissed Selene Antone and I liked it. But then I kissed James Robles and it was great too!” He tossed the ball, watching it sparkle and jump in the air. “Ok! That’s good.”

“You could be bi,” Alex said.

Michael frowned. “Bi -- what’s that?”

He’d spent a lot of time imagining he’d get to have this conversation, but he’d always hoped he’d be on the other end, with someone he trusted to answer questions. Then he’d gotten older and it had never happened, so he’d read and guessed and hoped.

“Bi is bisexual, it means you can like men and women and non-binary people.”

“‘Non-binary’ -- I don’t know that word.” He made a frustrated noise. “There’s too many words.”

Alex smiled: “They’re words that help people figure out who they are. It means different things to different people, but it’s, like, you don’t identify as a man or a woman. It’s a gender thing, not an orientation thing.”

“Huh,” Michael said, watching as he tossed the ball higher and higher. “Anyway, I asked James to be my boyfriend and he said yes and we got McDonalds together and his Mom was ok about it after Marie talked to her and his Dad’s kinda being weird about it, but,” Michael shrugged. “That might be because I’m not an enrolled member of the tribe.”

Alex tilted his head to the side: “It could be. It could be that he’s biased. You’ll face both of those things, but it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you.”

“Oh, I know _that_ ,” Michael said lightly. “I’m literally from another planet and so are Jared and Marie and Max and Isobel, so why do I have to do things the way President Bush or the government wants. They’re old and terrible.”

Alex felt his heart swelling. “That’s a good point.” He took a moment. “Were you worried about telling me? Did you think I wouldn’t be ok with it?”

“No!” Michael said much too quickly. “It’s just -- you’re a soldier, right?”

“An airman,” Alex corrected, before saying: “I’m a Captain in the US Air Force, yeah.”

“And all the soldiers I know, they don’t believe in gay people.”

Alex huffed a laugh with no humor in it. “What, like we're unicorns?" He shook his head. "Well, I don’t tell you the future and I don’t mess with your past, but I can tell you there are lots of queer people in the military.”

“But it’s illegal,” Michael said, sounding doubtful.

“Right now it is,” Alex said, speaking carefully. “But, sometimes we hide things to get into the places we need to be to make the change we need to see in the world.”

“Is that what you did?”

“Yeah.”

Michael frowned at his hands, and then tossed the ball into the air and caught it.

“Catch?” he asked hopefully. 

Alex checked his watch: 510 seconds. “Sure,” Alex said, and he tossed it to Alex gently. When he caught it in his palm, it made a gentle chiming sound. He looked up at Michael who smirked.

“Sara went to the big pow-wow in San Francisco and brought that back for me from Chinatown. It’s a steel ball with another ball inside of it. I was practicing keeping the little ball from dinging against the bigger one using my powers while I threw it.”

“That’s really impressive control,” Alex said, tossing the ball back to Michael who flushed before tossing it back, making it do a loop-the-loop before landing firmly in Alex’s palm.

“Oh,” Alex said. “Before I forget.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out the Hand of Fatima. “Catch,” he said, tossing it to Michael who snatched it out of the air, no powers. “It’s from Jordan,” Alex said, “It’s called the Hand of Fatima by the people there, and it’s kind of like a good luck charm. It’s usually worn by women,” he smiled a little, “But like you said, why be bound by outdated ideas?”

“Thanks, Alex,” Michael said, “That’s really cool.” He looked at it for a long moment, tracing over the whorls and swirls of the olive wood before putting it into his flannel shirt pocket. Once his hands were free again, he tossed him the silver ball.

“So, tell me about your classes. I didn’t know they offered AP Physics in Junior High.”

“Oh, I’m not in Junior High,” Michael said, tossing the ball with a flourish so it rolled like it was coming down a whirlpool until it hovered, pausing, and then dropped into Alex’s palm. “I tested into the high school last year, and I’ll be a Junior next year. I’m taking community college classes already, so I figured I can get my AA before I graduate, then work on one of the ranches here for a while, and save up for college.”

“Why do you need to save-up for college?” Alex tossed the ball back.

Michael shrugged. “Jared and Marie, they’ve been saving for me, but it’s not like there’s a ton of jobs here, and they’re older, and not enrolled members of the tribe. We think we can afford UNM, but only if I get all my pre-reqs out of the way before I go.” He tossed the ball underhand, just letting it fly, but keeping the inner sphere from sounding as it hit Alex’s palm.

A thought was starting to form for Alex. “If you could go anywhere in the world, do anything, what would you do?”

Michael’s smile was big as he waved his hands. “I’d go to MIT or CalTech or CMU and get a PhD in Physics or Computer Science or Astrophysics or Aerospace design, and then I’d build the first spaceship to Antares. I’d go back to see my people, show them everything we’ve done here on earth.” He had a big, proud smile, and Alex could see him, stepping out of the ship, hands raised, adoring crowds around him.

Alex tossed him the ball: “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, “just like our last deal about your staying safe.”

Michael nodded. “I have been. I see Isobel and Max and we talk about our powers, but I don’t talk about them to anyone else but Jared and Marie, who give me homework.” He shook the ball, and it rang, stopping halfway through the motion, then starting up again.

“That’s really smart. So the new deal is this: if you can get into one of those schools you dream about -- and you’re smart and motivated and a good student, so I believe you can -- I will pay for it. All the way through post-grad.”

Michael looked down, rolling the ball between his hands, a frown forming on his young face: “That’s a lot of money, Alex.”

Alex paused. “It is.” He tried to think of how to say this. _324 seconds left._ “Think of it as a no-interest loan. And then the time comes that you can repay it, don’t pay me back, because I don’t need the money. But help someone else. Someone who needs it. Someone who you can use it to save.”

“It’s a _lot of money, Alex,_ ” Michael said, voice choked, like tears were close to the surface. Alex rolled forward on his knees, bracing himself on the TV stand, trying to get Michael to look at him. He finally did, eyes swimming.

“It is. And the string attached is that you have to work really hard, that you have to find what makes you really happy, what helps you help others the best you can, and then you have to do it.”

“It’s too much,” Michael said, voice catching. “I can’t ask for it.”

Alex closed his eyes. “You don’t have to ask. I’m offering. You asked me, last time, to tell you what makes me as happy as getting Isobel and Max back makes you. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten something as big as returning to a family who love me, but I know that helping people who deserve the help, who will use the help to make a better world, that makes me really happy.”

Michael hiccuped and then covered his mouth. “I thought you were going to say doing time travel or being a badass or something.”

Alex huffed a laugh. “Being a Time Agent is good when it lets me help people.”

Michael tossed the ball to him. Alex checked his watch: 62 more seconds.

“So, is it a deal?” He asked, tossing it back. “You’ll get into the best program you can and I’ll pay for it?”

“Being a Time Agent must pay _really_ well,” Michael said, looking down at the ball. Alex didn’t say anything, giving him space to think. Then his eyes rose to meet Alex's, a determined look settling across his pre-teen face. “Deal.”

“Deal.” Alex said, raising his hand to catch the ball.

Michael tossed it to him and Alex said: “If you can find one, you might want to join a Gay-Straight Alliance or find a local PFLAG -- Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays -- chapter. It can be,” he frowned at the little sphere in his hands, “It can be hard, if you don’t have role-models. Growing up out here. So go and find some if you can. People you respect. People who work hard. People who care for you.” Alex tossed the ball to him.

“I’ve got you,” Michael said, catching the ball, voice even and sure.

“You do.” Alex said. 15 more seconds. “Ok, I’m getting pulled back.”

“Ok,” Michael said. “And Alex?”

“Yeah?” Alex said as the watch hit 10 seconds.

“Catch.”

And he tossed the silver ball to Alex, using his powers to slip it into his palm just as the timestream flared around him; Alex barely managed to grip the ball to keep a hold of it as he tumbled back into the rushing electric blue.

\--

Alex gasped in the frigid air of the time chamber, still holding the little ball, hearing it clang quietly to itself in his fist as he stood, using the stool someone had remembered to put inside.

He’d never seen the lab so crowded. There must have been a hundred, two hundred people. Dignitaries and Peshmerga, women, men and people in a range of cultural dresses and western styles of dress. They were all clapping in a loud, resounding unison that made the chamber echo. A crowd of smiling faces, if he skipped over his father's glare.

And right in the middle of the crowd was Tara Hedayati. She met his eyes, holding them for a long moment before she nodded to him before stepping back into the crowd. Flint’s voice echoed across the lab. “If you would all follow Foreign Secretary Hedayati into the reception room, we would be most honored.”

Alex slipped the metal ball into his pocket as he undressed, feeling a warm bloom in his chest he was almost certain was happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I went to the Dead Sea and Petra as part of my first delegation trip to the Middle East in 2013, so this continues my theme of Sending Alex Manes Places I Liked.


	11. That which might hurt you

Alex Manes had his head down on the table in a corner booth at Crashdown. The sun wasn’t up; Kyle Valenti was gossiping about stem cell research with Liz Ortecho over the counter; the guy in the black cowboy hat was sitting at the booth on the far end, with his back to the door with his single cup of coffee; the crackling of the fryer and clanging of pans came from the sole inhabitant of the kitchen the man Rosa had introduced as her father Arturo. Rosa was sympathetically patting Alex’s hand as she painted his nails the color black she kept in her purse for _queer drama emergencies_.

His voice echoed back to him against the smooth formica as he muttered: “I just don’t know why I’m jealous of a 13-year-old boy. Like, how come he’s out and I’m not? How come _he has a boyfriend_ and I don’t? _How can I be a role-model to a queer child if I have literally never kissed someone I like?_ ”

Today had been a red letter day in the sexuality department. After obsessing about it all morning at Kyle during their pre-dawn run, Kyle had nearly levered him out of the apartment, marched him to the Crashdown Cafe, sat him in front of Rosa, and said: “Your turn.”

Alex had nearly growled at him, glowered at Rosa, and generally tried to regain his sense of stoic equilibrium. Then Rosa had put a plate with an everything bagel, toasted mouth-cuttingly crispy, with lox and cream cheese in front of him, with a side of eggs covered in chili Christmas style, and an orange juice.

He took a bite, and his entire mouth exploding with flavor, and said: “I’m gay.”

“Ok, chico,” she said with a laugh, “but you’re also hella rude, swallow before you speak.”

And that was how Captain Alex Manes came out to the third person he’d ever chosen to tell about his orientation.

Unfortunately, once the buzz of the chili in his mouth had worn off, he’d returned to his prior spiral. “He was just so _happy_ and _confident_ about it. Like, ‘yes! I’m 13! And I have a boyfriend!’”

Alex knocked his forehead gently against the table. Before he could do it a second time, Rosa stuck her hand between his skin and the formica, nails up. “No more of that,” she said. “Do you want a boyfriend?”

For a fleeting second, Alex thought of a red motorcycle, a white couch, and scrambled eggs in the morning. Then reality crashed in and Alex shivered, “He’d kill me. He nearly killed the --” and he swallowed it.

“Alex?” Rosa said, voice quiet. “Finish the sentence, boo.”

He sat-up, shoulders back, and shook his head. “I really, really can’t.”

She looked like she was trying to control her face. “Because someone might hear?”

And _God_ , he hadn’t even thought of it. He hadn’t even -- “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said, shoving himself to standing. “I’ve --” 

“Alex, wait --” Rosa started, but Alex was already barreling out the door, no idea where Kyle was, no space to care. He ran to the corner where he parked his bike, pulled the helmet on, jammed the key in the slot, swearing at it as it caught and then in relief as it revved to life. In minutes he was on the open highway out of Roswell. He felt his phone vibrate and he’d feel bad in a minute, right after his vision cleared and he could breathe around the boot on his chest.

The desert was pure, crisp this time of morning. Thick with sage beside the roadways, thinner out towards the horizon, he picked a direction and leaned into it, letting his lungs fill with the air that forced its way past his visor, cool and crisp and free.

He pulled onto a winding county road, taking it up and up and up the side of a mesa, until there was more scrub pine than sage and he could feel his hands again. He tucked his bike behind a scrub pine and went to go sit inside the cover of its thick branches, everything around him sharp with sap and morning dew.

He pulled out his phone: 3 missed calls from Kyle, 12 from Rosa.

He called Kyle: “I’m safe,” he said. 

“Ok, good. You had us worried.”

“I just,” he rubbed his face. “I don’t know.”

“Rosa said she triggered you pretty bad.”

“I don’t have triggers.” _People with triggers don’t get to be Time Agents_.

“Alex --” Kyle started. Then he sighed. “You’re safe?”

“I’m always safe.”

Another one of those long, labored pauses.

“Take the time and space you need, ok?”

Alex looked out at the horizon. “Can you put Rosa on?”

“Fine -- one sec. I’m going to go check on Truman.”

There was the scruffy sound of a phone being passed then -- “Pendejo! You scared me.”

He felt it catch in his chest, her raised voice pinging around his head, but he forced the words out: “Can I tell you something? Something bad.”

She paused and said: “Shoot, chico.”

“I held hands with a boy. When I was 13. I was in Baghdad and he was the son of one of the kitchen workers and we’d been left alone all day. We’d run around the base, making nuisances of ourselves. His name was AZ,” his voice caught in his throat. “It’s normal, in the Middle East, for men, for boys, to hold hands. We were in the machine shop, just hiding out, playing make believe.” He gulped in air, jaw aching, trying to say this, so maybe if someone else knew it, it wouldn’t echo so loud in his brain; nothing else had worked. “My father found us. He took a hammer. He,” Alex felt it, in his stomach, a boot on his chest, “He knocked me down, kicked me, pressed down until I couldn’t breathe, then kept going. I couldn’t get up, it hurt too much, I couldn't breathe. He took AZ’s hand and,” and here his voice was entirely flat, _flat affect; flat asset,_ “He smashed his hand. With a hammer.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he heard her breathe.

“That’s why I haven’t had a boyfriend and I can’t think about getting one. Why I’ve never done anything with anyone outside of a mission. He’d kill them. Literally. It’s not -- it’s not because I’m a coward or a sneak or a late bloomer. He’d literally kill anyone I was with. I never saw AZ again and his mother lost her job in the Green Zone. He’s dead because of me for all I know.” He took a hard breath, “I’d understand, if you don’t want to hangout anymore.” He gave a wet chuckle. “I’m not a lot of fun.”

“Don’t talk about my friend Alex that way,” Rosa snapped. “Don’t you fucking dare. Get back here and let me finish painting your nails. You left with like half a paw done.”

Alex looked down at his hands; he was only half decorated. “I -- I don’t know if I can.” His head was whirling with shame about storming out, about whatever that had been.

“Sure you can. Get on your big scary man bike and come down off the sulking mountain or wherever you are. Just -- come on Alex. This shit is easier to bear with others than alone.” Her voice got less campy, quieter. “It’s not like you’re the only one with trauma here. Come on, come on back.”

And it wasn’t the words, but the tone that dragged him over to his bike. That soft voice, like his Mom had used when he’d come to her with a scrape on the rare days he’d been allowed to see her. _“Come on, little man. Come over here.”_

“‘Kay.” He said and hung-up the phone. 

He took one last look at the dawning sky, impossible horizon; and got back on the road back down the mountain.

\--

“So, your Papi sucks,” Rosa said, bending over his nails and trying to fix the edges he’d smudged with nail polish remover. He knew he’d have to take it off before going onto base tomorrow to prep for his mission the day after to Somalia, but he could have it for today.

“Yeah. And I work for him, so it’s not like I can get away.”

“I don’t like that job for you.” She scraped a hard nail up the side of his, pealing away the smeared polish. 

“I help a lot of people. A _lot_.” Alex said.

“Hmm,” Rosa said, filling in the gaps in the paint she’d just pealed off. “I still don’t like this job for you.”

“Like -- a _lot_ \--”

“I’m not going to like this job for you, Alex. I’ve only just met you and I know you’ve handled harder shit than most of us here,” she kicked his metal ankle with sisterly precision, “and if me even _mentioning_ that he might find out about you _thinking_ about dating a boy is enough to set off,” she flapped her hand to encompass his earlier flight, “then I don’t like this job for you.”

“I can’t get out of it,” Alex said quietly. “I was made for it.”

She pursed her lips, wrinkling her nose and starting on the next layer of nail polish. “Sounds like he sucks and you should try. But in the meantime,” she said slowly, finishing touching up his pinky, “You said that you’d only ever been with people on a mission. I assume you meant sex?”

Alex managed a nod, eyes on his fingernails.

“So, not having a lot of choices, not being able to be with people you like, can be weird and hard,” she said carefully, but tightness with which she held his hand to paint his thumbnail kept him from feeling coddled even as he breathed through it, “And I’m not going to therapize you about it like Kyle would, though you should do some therapy. So much therapy, chico. But I will say that those kinds of experiences can really mess up your sense of what you owe to yourself and what you owe to others.” She took a breath, looking at his hand: “So, it sounds like you have a totally reasonable fear of being out; so don’t be out. Just tell the people you want to and can trust. It doesn’t make you less than what you are. Pride parades are to make space for people to come out, not to force them into unsafe situations. But you want to get to know some other queer people, working towards being out more when you can be.”

“So, it’s impossible.”

She shook her head, a fierce look coming across her face. “I went through a lot of shit in high school before I got diagnoses and the right pills and therapized and stuff. Big fan of better living through chemistry, by the way. Anyway. I had a bunch of shitty boyfriends and girlfriends and you know what I learned?”

Alex shook his head.

“The thing about abusers is, their first way of taking power is making you think they have it all already. That they can see everything you do, know everywhere you go. _But they don’t._ If _you_ were talking to you, trying to help you, how realistically likely is it that your Papi will find out you spent an hour at a queer bar tonight?”

Alex frowned and looked down at his deeply-out--of-regulations, but deeply-satisfying nails. “5%.”

Rosa shook her head. “You nerds and your quantified emotions. You sound just like Liz. So, if you think it’s worth a 5% risk, come with Planet 7 with me tonight, practice talking to other queer people without losing your shit.” She paused, voice getting quieter. “So, it’s up to you. Is 5% worth it? To --” she frowned a little, “To try to be the person your friend thinks you are?”

Alex Manes was a lot of things: a son, a brother, a Time Agent; as of this week, a friend, an owner of a motorcycle, someone who could cook, and an out-to-some-people gay man. But at his core, in his heart of hearts, he was one thing: not someone to back down from a challenge.

“Absolutely.”

\--

Planet 7 was -- smaller than the Wild Pony. It was brightly colored, flashy with rainbows, and tinkly with pop music Alex didn’t recognize. Rosa and Kyle stuck close to his sides. Rosa snagged them a corner booth then spoke-yell, Asking for Alex’s drink order.

“Soda water is fine,”

“Perfect, me too,” she said. “Kyle?”

“I’ll join you both on the sober train,” he said.

Alex glanced at him and he answered the unspoken question: “Rosa doesn’t drink, and she only comes here with company who can support her. She wants to show it off to you, but it’s also a hard place for her.”

Alex frowned. “Is it ok for her to be here?”

Kyle shrugged: “She’s in a good place. 31 has been a good year for her. She’s got a solo gallery show, a good support system, and if you’re up for it, she likes projects and I think she’s trying to see if you want to be one of hers.”

“Her project?” Alex said doubtfully as he watched Rosa dance and slide her way through the crowd, coming back with 3 soda waters balanced with a waitress’s dexterity and skill.

Kyle waved to his fingernails: “She’ll just keep poking until you tell her to stop. After the bike, and the nails, she’s going to see if you have a fashion sense and poke and prod at that, then your house, your music tastes --” at Alex’s expression he began to laugh. “She’s got a lot of personality and a lot of steel behind it; people tried to push her down, box her up when she was growing up. She has a lot of experience fighting her way free of all of that and she likes to share it. But if you want her to stop, you’re going to have to tell her.”

“I don’t know, in limited doses it sounds like it could be helpful,” Alex said, “God knows I’ve never figured out how to do all of that.”

Kyle looked at him for a moment, then said: “I don’t know -- you found books, learned to love places that make most Americans sneer, protected yourself so that when you finally saw a lifeline, you were strong enough to hold onto it. That’s pretty impressive to me.”

Alex ducked his head, grateful as Rosa sat down.

“What do you think of the blue haired one?” She half-shouted in his ear.

Alex’s head snapped up, scanning the crowd. He stood out, tall, good shoulders, military bearing -- and a shock of turquoise hair. The crowd shifted and Alex got a full view as he leaned across the bar to get what looked like a Moscow Mule.

“Nice ass,” he said, and Kyle nearly aspirated his soda, Rosa cackling with delight.

Alex sipped his soda, scanning the bar. Rosa elbowed him and half-shouted: “Go say hi to him!”

Alex shook his head -- “I’m sure he came here with someone.”

Rosa looked around with big, exaggerated eyes, clocking the blue-haired man leaning against the bar and sipping his drink. “ _I_ don’t see him with anyone. Kyle, do _you_ see him with anyone?”

With a look of apology at Alex, he shook his head. “Nope.”

“See!” Rosa said, nudging Alex a little more gently. “Go over there and practice talking. You’re not asking him for a date, you’re not going to fuck in the bathroom, just -- practice talking.”

Maybe it was the pumping music or the gleeful look on Rosa’s face, maybe it was the giddiness of seeing a dozen other queer people all dancing and talking and no one hunting or hurting them, but Alex said: “Ok, alright, let me out.”

He stood, gripping his tumbler of soda tightly enough his fingers slipped on the condensation, and headed into the crowd.

\--

He came back 3 minutes later and very quietly buried his face in Rosa’s shoulder.

She gave him a sympathetic look; the blue-haired man was now dancing with a very enthusiastically-grinding young man in a tanktop and blue satin shorts.

“Not your type?” Rosa asked, putting her arm around his shoulder and tucking him into her side. 

Alex felt as wooden as cherry wood and twice as red as he mumbled: “I didn’t get to find out. I said I liked his hair; he said he liked my nails.”

“That’s good!” Rosa said.

Alex continued miserably, voice as flat as if it was a failed mission report: “He asked what I did to spend my time. I totally blanked. I told him I was really proud of a friend who was taking AP Physics in Junior High.”

Rosa’s voice was disbelieving even through the sound of the music: “You followed a pick-up line from a hot man by telling a story about a child.”

“I couldn’t think of anything else to say. He found someone else to talk.” Alex was pretty sure Kyle was going to drown if he didn’t stop laughing soon; either drown in his soda water or drown when Alex drowned him in the bathtub, he wasn’t sure.

“I _talk for a living_ , Rosa. Why am I _terrible_ at this?”

She tucked him a little closer to her side. “Maybe because it matters here. And you’re actually being you, and not the character you play at work.”

Alex groaned articulately into her shoulder blade and she patted his back.

“So, Rosa,” Kyle said. “Now it’s your turn. How about your go chat with that pretty blond woman. She looks like she’s a foot taller than you; just your type.”

Rosa stuck her tongue out at him but gave Alex one more squeeze before going to stand. She smoothed her hand down her leather skirt and grinned. “Don’t leave without me!”

She swaggered over to the blond woman in question, and in a few minutes they were tangled up in each other, dancing and swaying. It looked nice, Alex thought. Touching someone, dancing with them. He felt cold without Rosa sitting next to him.

Kyle glanced over at him: “Not too traumatic?”

Alex made a face: “I just wish I didn’t suck at it.”

Kyle shrugged: “You know this better than I do, but a lot of queer folks don’t get a lot of practice doing this kind of stuff in their teens or early 20s. It’s not unusual for people in their late 20s and mid-30s to be figuring out how to date. Your experiences are unique, but what you’re going through is something a lot of people here have dealt with or are dealing with.” He gave Alex a half-smile. “I wish I could give you a magic word or phrase or dating algorithm or whatever, but it doesn’t really work that way. Sorry.”

Alex grumbled: “I could just pretend it was a mission.”

Kyle frowned: “You could -- but Rosa was right. I think you’re good at parts of your missions because you’re playing a part. And that’s fine -- that’s what you have to do. But if you do that for your _real_ life, then you’re going to meet someone, get to know them, and only let them see that part you’re playing. Not the real you underneath.”

Alex tapped his glass on the table, making a Celtric triptych with the condensation rings. “And who is the ‘real me’? And who on earth would want to get to know him?”

Kyle shook his head. “I know _for a fact_ that there are people who want to get to know you in all your complex, messed-up glory, Alex. You just need to hang on. You’ll find them.”

Alex took a last drink of the soda water. “I’m about ready to head out -- you want to extract Rosa or should I?” They glanced over at her, her fingers buried in the fine blond hair of the woman she was dancing with, mussing the heck out of her high sloppy ponytail.

Kyle sighed: “I’d better -- she tends to get cranky when you interrupt her.”

Alex smiled and stood, working his way to the front of the bar, dropping his glass off on the side of it to make it easier to clean-up.

The fresh air outside was soft on his face, cool compared with the muggy heat inside. Alex leaned his hips back against the brick wall, imagining what it would be like to dance in a bar like that, to have someone in his arms. His heart beat a little harder at the thought. If he made it back from Somalia, he could try again. _Another time._

\--

“So, you’ve been awful quiet about your next mission,” Kyle observed the next morning before work as Alex worked on learning to flip a crepe.

“Hmm?” Alex said, trying to think of a way to change the subject.

“You’re heading out tomorrow at ass-o-clock in the morning and I haven’t even been given a copy of your briefing.”

“You don’t always get a copy of them beforehand,” Alex said. “Particularly if it’s someplace I’ve been before.”

“Sure, if you don’t need any new shots or anything. But,” he looked at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Hmm?” Alex said again, nudging the edge of his spatula under the crisping crepe, getting it loose enough to flip.

“Alex.” Kyle said, voice steady. “What’s the mission?”

He flipped the crepe, catching it mostly in the middle of the pan.

“You’re going to be pissed and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

“What -- why?”

Alex twisted his mouth. “Mogadishu.” He’d read through the briefings the night before after coming back from Planet 7; he hadn’t unlocked his heart from a box since, not with the full color pictures of war crimes that they’d included.

“Mogadishu.” Kyle said, tone entirely flat.

“The capital of Somalia.” Alex said, starting another crepe. “I was just offshore in 1993.”

“They already sent you there.”

“In 1995, yeah, coming down from Sudan. But they wanted to try --”

“They’re going to have you try and stop Black Hawk Down.”

The sound of the gas burner crackling the butter around the edges of the crepe was the only sound in the apartment. Alex took a long, slow breath.

“They --”

Kyle slammed the plate he was washing on the counter and Alex flinched, gritting his jaw to force himself to stay standing near Kyle and not get a wall at his back.

“Sorry. Sorry, Alex. It’s just -- they’re trying to kill you. That’s a suicide run.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“The _fuck_ he wouldn’t, after what he’s --”

“He needs me.” His voice was distant, precise. “The Colonel needs me. I’m the reason he got promoted. You think he bounced from enlisted to officer the year after I was tested as Time Aware because of his political skills?” Alex scoffed darkly, nudging the crepe in the pan. “When I was born, he was a nothing E-4. He gets his last son tested for time awareness; and I’ve got it. Within a year, he’s on his way to being a Colonel. He needed the title to get to take me all the places the military needed me. He couldn’t get there as enlisted, so he was put on the fast track.” He ground his teeth. “He needs me. He won’t kill me.”

“But maim you? Torture you? Threaten you until --” Kyle pressed his hands over his face as if to physically force the words to stay inside.

“I can handle myself.”

“What’s the mission, Alex?”

Alex closed his eyes, taking a breath in, then letting it out again. “I’m going to meet-up with Muammur Farrah Aideed. He’s a US Marine who also happens to be General Mohamed Farrah Aideed’s son; the General is the one who declared himself president of Somalia and the target of the original US mission. His son grew up with a Mom who received asylum here, he joined the Marines after high school, went into the reserves, and was called-up in 1993. He was stationed on the USS _Bataan_ , serving as a translator since he was the only Marine who spoke Somali _._ ”

“Ok, so you’re staying on the ship?” Kyle asked, not sounding like he believed his own hopefulness.

“No,” Alex said. “I’m going back to May 24th, 1993. In this timeline, on June 5th, 1993, General Mohamed Farrah Aideed’s forces attacked a UN group, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers. That was the reason the US sent Delta Force and other troops into Mogadishu. But if we -- if _I_ \-- can convince the General _not_ to ambush the UN soldiers, the US won’t get dragged into the most humiliating military failure since Saigon.”

“And it’s all about saving face for the Colonel, isn’t it.”

“It’s about saving the hundreds of Somalis we killed trying to get those Army men out of there,” Alex shot back. “It’s about ending the war faster.”

“It’s a death sentence and you know it, Alex!” Kyle said, barely keeping his tone out of shouting range. “You freaking know it and you’re defending him --”

“I signed up for this, Kyle!” Alex said, voice rising as he stepped away from the stove. “I signed up for it. If I’d known you, Michael, Rosa, Dr Guerin, any of you when I was 18, maybe I wouldn’t have. I don’t know. But I didn’t and this is what I signed-up for and I’d appreciate if you got off my back about it. Do you remember there being 19 attackers on 9/11? How about a four-year siege of Sarajevo? Kurdistan not being a country? No! Because _I changed history_. And only I remember the other timelines, the other worlds. Those are _my_ memories to bear, not _yours_. So I would appreciate if you got off my back about it!”

Kyle raised his hands up. “I’m going to take a walk. I should be back in like 15 minutes.”

Alex felt a pressure around his heart, but nodded, turning back to the stove. “I’ll finish the rest of the batter?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, still not looking at him, pulling out his phone. “Thanks for doing that. See you.”

Alex worked the crepe in the pan, thinking about what Kyle had said.

\--

Alex opened his eyes in the empty officer’s bunk of a Navy ship. It was always sort-of random where he started the missions out. Always within a few dozen meters of where he was on his first trip through the timeline, but whoever had designed the alien implant in his chest had always done something to prevent Alex from materializing, say, _inside_ a bulkhead rather than beside it. It was something he was intensely grateful for as the lights of the timestream faded back under his skin.

He was dressed as a Navy Lieutenant Commander; enough rank to get him where he needed to be, but not enough to make him memorable. The uniform fit oddly around his prosthetic, showing the ankle when he moved. It also looked a little bulky around his chest; under his kevlar vest, he’d packed about 6 pounds of pre-2004 money for Michael’s tuition -- $250,000. It had been a trick and a half convincing the bank to waive their daily withdrawal limit, but he’d done the song and dance long enough with them they’d finally given in. He had 3 knives and two guns, only one of which was visible. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use any of them. His nails were freshly scrubbed.

He shook his head, bringing himself back to the gently rocking warship off the coast of Somalia. This was one of the few missions where he was expected help from the inside. He hadn’t told Kyle about it, but there had been weeks of the other Time Agents hopping back to the Pentagon in 1993, laying the groundwork for Alex to be included in a mission to the mainland that hadn’t happened in his own timeline.

He also hadn’t told Kyle that he had authorization to kill both the General, and his US Marine son, if he found it necessary. He was starting to realize how much of his work his friend didn’t know about, or hadn’t chosen to learn about.

Kyle’s gentleness and ethics made him a good doctor and an even better friend, but Alex was sure he wouldn’t approve of this mission or the dozens like it he’d taken on as a Time Agent. _Now’s not the time to worry about Kyle’s ethics_ , Alex reminded himself, straightening his uniform. _Now’s the time to survive_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the wonderful folks at the 18+ Roswell Discord for their encouragement!


	12. say it ain't so

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Michael loses his shit at Alex about something. No one hits anyone, but there’s a lot of shouting. Try to remember that Michael is 14 and doing his best. It’s not great, but it is necessary. Please let me know if you need more details.

Alex met up with Lance Corporal Aideed on the deck of the USS _Bataan_ at little after 2am local time. The man was tall, broad -- he looked like a Marine from a recruiting poster. 

“Lieutenant Commander.” He said, saluting Alex crisply.

“Lance Corporal Aideed, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Alex said, returning his salute.

“You’ve been fully briefed?”

There was a hint of a sag in the man’s posture. “You have intelligence there’s a planned attack on UN forces. Since the UN forces are there to attack General Aideed’s position, that’s not unexpected. But your intention is to convince him to choose non-lethal means?”

“Yes. Are you comfortable with that -- fathers and sons, it get complicated.”

The older man shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since I was in high school. I have no issues with this mission. I don’t know how your team convinced him to take this meeting.”

Alex knew it had had something to do with a threat on Lance Corporal Aideed’s life and the carrot of getting to see him again, so he just said: “They’re very good at their jobs.”

Alex nodded since his tone brooked no further inquiry, and the sailor who’d been politely waiting for them to finish asked if they were ready to go. Alex led the way and they were quickly loaded into a blacked-out speedboat, whose engine was too loud to allow conversation. As they crossed the warm waters to the beach where they’d meet the General, Alex could still see the twinkling lights of the houses, apartment buildings, hospitals and government buildings of Mogadishu.

Alex’s last run through here had been in 1995 in the north, after everything had gone to utter shit everywhere. But where they were standing in the summer of 1993, the UN intervention had been going on for six months, and Mogadishu was the wound that would keep growing to eat the whole country for a half-decade. General Aideed’s militia had taken the city six months before, triggering the UN’s intervention. They had been accused of war crimes that had flashed through Alex’s mind in technicolor since he’d read them the morning before, had hovered on the tip of his tongue. 

It felt like his fault. He’d been tested and found Time Aware when he was two years old, and he was brought on his first mission to Kuwait in December of 1992. If his father had taken him here with the first Navy ships to slip down the coast of East Africa in the first portion of the UN intervention, he could have -- he didn’t know. Come back to convince General Aideed to train his men not to commit war crimes when taking the city. _Something_. It felt like there had to be _something_ he could have done.

But now there was a city in front of him, and beside him in the speed boat was the son of the man who had apologized for the crimes of his militia but continued ruling. 

Suddenly, Alex wondered what his father would do, if a stranger from another country had come to him, to try to convince him not to turn Alex’s childhood into a military experiment. What they would have to offer, to have to say, to convince him to not take something he’d wanted for so long, could see so much value in. To be softer, in some impossible way. Alex didn’t think this was a portfolio mission, but it certainly was no pleasant hike through the Petra sun with Tara Hedayati. He didn’t think he’d have any real souvenirs to bring Michael this time. 

Their speedboat nudged up onto the crisp sand of the jetty protecting the small bay around Old Mogadishu. A man with a Kalashnikov in one hand, finger held carefully outside of the trigger guard, reached out to grip the edge of the boat, helping haul it all the way onto shore. He reached out of hand to help Alex out of the boat and Alex took it.

“Mahadsanid,” he said.

The man flashed a bright white smile: “Prego.”

Alex chuckled and reached back to help the Lance Corporal step out.

“Is it alright if we switch to English?” Alex asked the man who met him, but he shook his head. 

He said in a thick Italian accent: “Russian, Italian, Somali, and a bit of Arabic. You got any of those?”

Alex jerked his head at Lance Corporal Aideed. “You speak Somali and English -- any others?”

He shook his head, eyes carefully scanning the armed men around them: “Spanish, not that that’s much help.” Alex had done that as they came in and knew the fastest way to keeping this sociable and non-violent was to appear relaxed. The thought that some of these men might have been responsible for the war crime pictures he’d locked in a footlocker in the back of his mind was firmly squashed.

“I speak Arabic, Russian, and English. Only enough Italian to get me in trouble on the football pitch,” Alex said. Then he gambled, hiking up his pant leg so the moonlight glinted off of it. “Or, I used to.”

The man with the Kalashnikov leaned down, keeping the gun in front of him from swinging: “That is beautiful. My mother would like it.”

“I’d prefer the leg back,” Alex said and the man laughed.

“So would my mother. Landmines are a curse.”

“That is the damn truth.”

The man jerked his head, switching to Somali and then repeating in Russian: “The General is inside the old city. You will come.”

Alex and Lance Corporal Aideed followed the men and Alex kept his shoulders loose as they were surrounded on all sides by armed men, hovering and weaving around them, none of them as friendly as the one who had met them at the beach. They stepped into the narrow passageways between the tall stone buildings. Alex could barely see the careful crenelations at the top of them, curving and sweeping like nothing he’d seen on a European castle of this scale. 

It was muggy, soggy underfoot, but there was straw down to keep the pathways from becoming slick. It had the wet seaside smell of most coastal towns; Alex wondered if he could come back here sometime, on one of those trips he’d told Liz Ortecho he wanted to take. Mogadishu was mostly peaceful in 2018, though most Americans wouldn’t travel to someplace without a national government. _I wonder how Dr Guerin’s robot snakes would navigate this complex_ , he wondered. No pipes in the walls, but there were great stone columns they could use.

The man who’d met them at the shore brought them to a door. Whether they were inside or outside wasn’t entirely clear. They had been through covered passageways and places with open sky; it was something of an arcology, as old cities often were.

In Somali and then in Russian he said: “The General has a busy schedule tomorrow; you have an hour.” He gave Lance Corporal Aideed a long look. “He will be glad to see you.”

The Lance Corporal nodded stiffly.

The man opened the thick wooden door and Alex had to blink; he hadn’t been able to see the bright lights of the room around the door, but there were a dozen electric lamps ringing the small room. In a large wooden chair sat General Aideed. A half-dozen men sat and stood behind him, eyes serious and wary as they took Alex and the Lance Corporal in.

The General was a big man, muscular and pressed in his formal clothing. He stepped forward, and extended a hand to his son.

In Somali, the General said: “Muammur. I’ve missed you. How is your mother?” The Lance Corporal translated.

“She’s well,” the Lance Corporal said in English and then translated for Alex’s benefit while politely returning his grip. “Noor and Ayan too.” Alex could see the tension in his shoulders, but he kept it out of his voice.

“You bring me a sailor with a proposal for peace?” The General said in Somali, turning to Alex. The Lance Corporal translated.

Alex stuck his hand out: “Lieutenant Commander Charles. Thank you for meeting with us.”

“Your government offered me a chance to see my son and a proposal to end the fighting; it seemed worth at least an hour.” The Lance Corporal translated as the General watched with attentive eyes.

There were no other chairs in the room and Alex sighed internally as the man returned to his large seat, bare of pillows. Physical mind games had been annoying before his injury and were just exhausting now. He shifted his weight and kept his shoulders relaxed as he heard the door behind them close and lock.

The general spoke and the Lance Corporal translated: “I would normally offer you a seat, hospitality, good food and drink.” He paused as the General continued to speak, then said: “But this is not a diplomatic visit. You are not from your State Department. You are not from your new President. What authority do you have to offer me anything? If you have none, we can spend a pleasant hour catching up. I would love to know my son’s ideas on rebuilding Mogadishu after the war.”

Alex spoke in Russian: “I bring something unusual. The truth.” The General’s eyes widened, an ironic tilt coming across his narrow face. Alex continued: “My father is on the ship we just came from. I have grown up in the world of war, because unlike you, my father did not send me away from it. Did not protect me from it. I have seen how my country behaves in crisis, how the specific men in command of at this moment will react. Just like you know your way through the old city in a way I never will, your son and I know how the old men of our country will behave.” 

Alex held his hands out flat in front of him, palms up, at his chest height, like he was weighing possibilities: “If your men ambush and kill a large group of UN peacekeepers,” he lowered one hand, “My country will bring in Delta Force teams.” 

He lowered the other. “If your men kill any US solider,” he lowered his right hand, “my country will send more troops to avenge them.” He lowered his left. “Our soldiers will die, because your men are fighting for their homes.” He lowered one hand. “Your people will die, because we have superior firepower.” 

His hands were at his waist. “Whether we leave or stay, after that, I don’t know; but my country bears grudges like people in villages carry water, and we have many other countries who carry our water for us. It may be decades of grudge-holding before _any_ government in Somalia is recognized. Any at all, if you humiliate the Americans by winning.”

He dropped his hands. “Alternately, you can capture the UN soldiers and leave them unharmed. The blue hats are peacekeepers, and as much as they oppose your goals, they will not fire first. And in the long run, you may win far more than just the city.”

The General shook his head, glancing up at his son, who translated. “This may not be possible, even if I believed you.”

The Lance Corporal said, in English: “He does not have full command over his men. Command and control isn’t the same here as it is in the west.”

The man who’d brought them from the beach translated this and the General’s lips pulled back into a sneer that made him for a flashing moment look so much like the Colonel Alex’s heart tripped over in his chest.

“You think you could do so much better?” He demanded, as the man behind them translated for Alex, the General advancing towards the Lance Corporal. “Pulling an Army together from the scraps of an empire no one even acknowledges exists anymore? You think you could get these men, who saw their homes burned, their families terrorized, you could teach them to be _polite_?”

The Lance Corporal shot back in rapid-fire Somali, the man behind them translating into Russian: “If I had to! If I had to, this army would follow orders, not attack the people you wish to be ruling in their houses! It would be something to be proud of, not ashamed of!”

The man behind Alex translated the General’s reply, cold as ice: “Then why don’t you?”

Alex looked over at the Lance Corporal, who looked pole-axed. His breath was coming high and tight in his chest, and Alex could see the sweat soaking through his fatigues. 

In English, he said: “I swore an oath.” His voice didn’t sound strong. Alex watched him as his face worked through the question, looking around the room, the men with their guns, their faces like his and not like his. The Lance Corporal was a big man, had grown-up on full meals, built strong muscles from them. He was half-a-head taller than everyone but his father; every other man in the room was slighter, wiry with muscles from work and not PT. Alex wondered if the Lance Corporal was seeing a vision of his past -- or his future.

He nodded to himself and repeated, this time in Somali: “I swore an oath.”

The General looked him over for a long minute and then nodded, checking his watch.

“I can’t make any promises to you,” he said as the Lance Corporal translated haltingly, “But I do not wish to see Delta Force teams on the streets of Mogadishu or US war planes carpet bombing my people. I do not wish US bullets to kill Somalis as you did to the people of Iraq, Panama, Libya, Grenada, Lebanon, Zaire, Cambodia, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Vietnam, Congo, or Laos. And those just in my son’s lifetime.”

The man paused, looking tired, then said, holding Alex’s eyes as his son translated: “You see, I know the men who run your country too. I know your history as well as you do, if not better. But as you leave me your advice, I will leave you mine,” and he paused, using thickly accented English to say: “You are not the good guys.”

“Mahadsanid,” Alex said.

The man behind Alex and the Lance Corporal said: “I’ll take you back to your ship. This way.”

Alex waited for the Lance Corporal to move first. After a long, slow look at this father, he turned to the door. Alex followed. They were silent on the walk back through the old city, Alex feeling sweat slip between his body, the ziplocked bags of cash, and the kevlar vest he was wearing under his fatigues, down his legs and trickling down his back. He had to suppress a chuckle as he remembered something his mother had told him: _“If you’re outside and you feel something moving under your clothing, see if it is moving down or up. If it is moving down, it’s sweat; if it’s moving up, it’s a spider.”_ Alex wondered what the Lance Corporal was going to tell his mother about the conversation he’d just had.

The sailor who’d piloted the boat to the shore had apparently figured out how to communicate in Somali enough to have bummed a cigarette from one of the Kalashinikov-holding guards; he tossed it into the sand as he saw Alex and the Lance Corporal returning. Alex knelt to pick-up the quenched butt, chucking it into the speedboat.

“It’s their country, we don’t get to just trash it,” he muttered in English. He turned to the man who’d escorted them back.

“I hope that was useful.”

The man glanced over at the Lance Corporal, who was sitting in the speedboat and whose eyes had not left Old Mogadishu. “Perhaps more for us than for you.”

Alex held out his hand and the other man grasped it.

“Thank you.” He said.

“Prego.” The man replied with a slight smile.

In the middle of the bay, the Lance Corporal shouted to Alex: “Do you believe we achieve our objective?”

Alex looked at the city lights, flickering and growing more distant by the moment. “I hope so.”

“Do you think he’ll win? That he’ll lead Somalia?”

Alex thought of the thick stack of photos of war crimes sitting back on his nightstand in Kyle’s apartment, slick photo after slick photo. 

“God, I hope not.”

\--

Alex spent the remaining 18 hours of his mission clock in the empty bunk. He’d said goodbye to the Lance Corporal and slipped through the ship’s library to find something to occupy his mind, keep it away from thinking too hard about what he’d just seen and done. He would have to thank whichever of the fabricators had given in a naval ID good enough to pass the librarian’s system, because he desperately needed to not be in his own head right now. 

He found a copy of Chinua Achebe’s _Things Fall Apart_ and fell into it; he’d read it before, in some backroom of some forward operating base. But he’d seen an interview with the Nigerian author where he described his reasons for writing it as “a kind of fundamental story of my condition that demanded to be heard, to retell the story of my encounter with Europe in a way acceptable to me.”

He had been wanting to reread it, to think about how he might tell the story of what he did in Mogadishu today in a way that was acceptable to him.

When his watch began its countdown, he set the book aside gently beneath the bunch and laid back, trying to relax his body. As he slipped back into the timestream, he kept his hand pressed against his chest and the cash beneath his kevlar, knowing at least one objectively good thing would come from this mission.

He landed in the same sun warmed living room. Michael wasn’t in the room. He wandered into the kitchen, seeing a kitschy calendar of murals from the Crashdown Cafe. Unless they didn’t flip over their calendar, it looked like it was May 2004.

He heard the sound of pounding piano music from the back of the house and headed that way. He passed the front door on the way and peered out the window: no truck in the driveway. So unless Jared or Marie had an unexpected taste for pop-rock, Alex expected it was Michael’s.

The door was shut with a big “I Want to Believe” poster duct-taped across the hollow core wooden door, with postcards from other UFO conspiracy museums taped around it.

> _Tell me your secrets_   
>  _And ask me your questions_   
>  _Oh let's go back to the start_

Alex smiled a little, trying to memorize the lyrics so he could look them up when he got back.

He knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” Came a shout.

“Hey, Michael, it’s Alex.”

The music shut off and there was a loud slapping noise, like Michael had thrown a textbook at the wall. Alex was starting to frown when the door slammed open and he was faced with a furious Michael.

“I don’t want to fucking talk to you, Alex _Manes_!” he spat, and _slammed_ the door closed again.

Alex frowned, brain slow to catch up. He tried knocking again: “Michael, I’m confused, what --”

“You’re a fucking _monster_ Alex! A fucking monster and so’s your _fucking father!”_

Alex felt like he’d been slammed deep underwater, trapped under an iceberg. His breath ratcheted in his chest, heart screaming to full speed as his hands began to shake.

“Did -- did something happen, Michael, I don’t understand --”

There was another loud _bang_ , like something heavier than a book had gotten thrown at the wall; maybe a teenaged fist.

“Leave me alone! Go fucking away. Go away! You _took my mother away_. Your whole perverted family took her away and they’re _torturing her_. I told Marie and Jared about you then then they _told me about you_. I never want to _see_ you again! You’ve got 15 minutes left so spend them getting as far away from me as you possibly fucking _can!_ ”

Alex didn’t think he could be clearer. He turned away from the door, then paused. He felt the money shift under his kevlar.

As quickly as he could, he undid his uniform buttons, unzipping the kevlar and carefully pulling the ziplock bags of pre-2004 money out. He layered them in the middle of the carpet runner. His brain was buzzing like a hundred fluorescent lights and the edges of his eyesight was flickering; he didn’t know how Michael would explain the money if Marie and Jared found it before he came out, but Michael never wanted to see him again, it wasn’t something he could fix. He was just glad he’d brought the money this time, rather than waiting until Michael was closer to school. Who knew how that would have gone; _maybe look like a bribe,_ Alex thought with a shudder.

There was a back door out of the kitchen; he took it, hands fumbling with the handle of the screendoor before getting it open and shouldering his way into the backyard. 876 more seconds. His stomach ached and he could barely see more than a pinprick.

There was some kind of garden shed in the back of the yard, by the tall southwestern fence. He stumbled towards it, prosthetic catching on the broken earth. He hissed, but forced himself to keep going.

The shed was unlocked and mostly empty, a few rakes holding steady against the unfinished wall. Alex shut and locked the door behind him. He got his back against the wall, his arms around his knees, and for the first time in his life, begged time to go faster. He _begged_.

It didn’t.

The backdoor _slammed_ open and Alex closed his eyes, heart pounding so hard his chest hurt with it. His hands gripped his forearms; the fatigues fabric was getting embedded in his sweat-slick skin. He wanted to go to the place where he didn’t feel pain, but he didn’t have the will to pull him away from Michael’s timeline. He just couldn’t do it.

“I don’t want your _fucking_ blood money, Alex Manes!” Michael shouted, fist pounding on the door.

Alex’s breath caught in his throat as he tried to call back: “It’s the only good thing that money’s ever going to, sending you to college.” His voice broke. “Please, Michael. Please.” 

His stomach was roiling, back so tense he couldn’t get a full breath.

Michael shouted, kicking the door hard enough it bowed inwards: “I want my mother back! I want my _fucking_ mother back! My whole family, Alex! My whole family is locked _in fucking hell_ because of you!”

Alex nodded and didn’t say anything. 758 more seconds.

“I hate you.” Michael said, voice breaking. The sound of a teenaged shoulders hitting the door and body sliding to sit against the concrete slab. “I hate you, Alex Manes.”

“That’s ok,” Alex said, voice getting firmer. “It’s good to be mad at the people who hurt you. It’s good to feel like you,” his voice broke again, _fuck_ , “It’s good to feel you deserve better. Better than all this crap you’ve gone through.”

His voice was muffled through the door, but Alex could hear the pain in it: “Is that what this has been, this whole fucking time, Alex? _Guilt?_ ”

“No!” Alex said, then kept his voice quieter, pulling his knees closer to himself. “No. I just wanted to help, Michael. You have to believe me. I just wanted someone to have an easier time of it than I did.”

There was a sneering laugh that felt like a cheese grater on Alex’s insides.

“How many seconds before you’re gone?”

“696.” Alex said, gritting his teeth against what felt like a sob.

“Too long.” Michael said.

“I’ll,” Alex said, “if whatever’s bringing me here brings me next year, I’ll do what you said. Walk away until the time runs out. I won’t bother you again.”

“How about you go back in time and save my Mom. How about that?”

“I didn’t know she was in Caulfield. I didn’t know who she was.”

“But you knew there were aliens in Caulfield. Am I -- am _I_ in Caulfield?” A cracking sound; the window beside the door just cracked down its length, the slicing glass held inside by the triple-glazing.

“ _No_ , Michael, God no, I -- I set a program to check, every hour, to check to make sure they don’t have you, don’t have Isobel or Max.”

“What about Marie and Jared?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Alex said, remembering himself, some sliver of protocol.

“That’s the answer there,” Michael said, voice furious. “The people who raised me, you’re _letting_ them, _your family_ , torture them! Every day! You see me for 16 minutes a year, a 1000 seconds, and then you go back home and -- do you _watch_ Alex? Do you _watch_ them torture my family?”

The sob broke through and Alex couldn’t stifle it, shoving his forearm over his mouth. “No,” he whispered. He knew Michael couldn’t hear him. “No, Michael. I tried -- I tried to help them. But I can’t --”

“What do you mean ‘you can’t’?” he said, voice rising as he stood. Alex watched the lock click to the side and then he -- he couldn’t look at Michael, couldn’t see the hate in his eyes. He looked down, trying to count the seconds until he was pulled back to his own time. 

Michael advanced on him, voice low and poisonous: “You’ve got -- all this money. All these badass skills. All this,” and Alex caught the edge of him waving his arms. “You can’t spring two old aliens out of your personal Abu Ghraib?”

Alex shook his head, keeping his eyes down. “I can’t. I want to. But I can’t.”

“You just haven’t tried.” Michael was standing over him and he still couldn’t look up.

Alex tucked his arms more tightly around his knees; at least when the kick came, it wouldn’t mess up his internal organs this way.

“You’re right. I’ve done bits and pieces, but I haven’t --”

“Alex,” Michael’s tone was quieter, holding something Alex didn’t know how to name, “Alex, what’s wrong with your leg.”

Alex glanced down; his prosthetic was showing between the hem of his pants and his boots.

“What?”

“Did you -- did you lose your leg?” Michael’s voice was quiet, cracking a little.

“Yeah?” Alex said, baffled. He guessed Michael just hadn’t noticed on any of the other visits.

“How did you -- was it an accident?”

“No?” Alex said, “I, uh,” he frowned, trying to think of how to say it, “I had a mission. I got hurt. I lost my leg.”

“A mission where?”

“Afghanistan.”

“When?”

“1997.”

There was a frown in Michael's voice. “You can only travel on your original timeline, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’re still 28?”

“Yeah.”

Michael paced back to the door and turned around, voice full of confusion. “You said you were in Kosovo and Sudan in 1999.”

“Yes.”

His voice was very, very careful: “What was a 7-year-old doing in Afghanistan, then Sudan and Kosovo 2 years later?”

Alex gave a half-cracked laugh. “I just got back from Somalia in 1993, if that gives you any clues.”

“Somalia?” Michael said, a shot of pain through the word. “What -- you were _three_ , Alex. Who would take a _three-year-old_ to Somalia in 1993?”

“Who do you think?”

“Your father?”

Alex said nothing, trying to concentrate on breathing.

He could hear Michael thinking this through. “He knew you were time aware. He brought you to --”

“Every war zone the US was in, from late 1992 to 2010.” Alex answered, voice flat.

Michael gasped. “That’s _horrible_ , Alex.”

Alex shook his head. “It’s good for my country. It helps people.”

“What, you not having a childhood? What kind of _monster_ does that to his son?”

Alex tried to look at him, but his eyes skittered away. “You have a right to be mad at me. Furious at me. Hate me. Don’t -- don’t let this take that away. I’d hate me too.”

“I -- I was just mad, Alex. I didn’t mean it,” he said, and he sounded like a little kid again, that 8-year-old he’d explained his medspray to. “I don’t hate you.”

Alex shook his head. “You _should_. You’re not wrong about the Time Agency. I -- I could do more to save them. If you -- “ And Alex had an idea. “If you tell me her name, I can -- I can try to get your Mom out, Michael. I had no idea she'd survived and you’re right, Caulfield is a hellhole and no one should be there, but I can’t save _everyone_ , at least not right now, but I can try to save her. _Please_ , I know you don’t trust me and you never want to see me again. But, please, if you tell me her name, I can at least _try_.”

Michael sounded scared, whether at Alex’s desperate tone or his own fears for his Mom: “Nora. She’s called Nora Truman.”

Alex closed his eyes, forcing himself to remember. “Nora Truman. Ok. When I get back, I’ll go through the files I stole from Caulfield. Am still stealing. If she’s still alive, in 2018, I’ll try to get her out.” His breath hitched in his chest. “Do you -- do you mind if I go back further in your past? I --” he let out a harsh breath, “I don’t have a lot of control over when I’m sent back. These visits and my own timeline are the only consistent thing in my life. But if I could free her, get to Marie and Jared in 2000 or 1995, can I?”

“Yeah,” Michael said, and Alex glanced up to see his face twisted. “Yeah, Alex.”

Alex heard the sorrow in his own voice: “I may not be able to do it until my own timeline, Michael. It may be 14 more years. I --” he bit his lip, “Because of how I grew-up, I didn’t spend almost any time in the US. A week a year on the Mescalero reservation is it, and I’m not likely to get sent back to those timelines for any missions. My father -- he sets the missions. Along with my brother, Flint.”

Michael’s voice was confused: “You have family on the Mescalero reservation?”

Alex closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. “Not that I would ever have been allowed to hyphenate, but in another timeline, a kinder one, my name is Alexander Shanta-Manes.”

“You’re,” Michael’s voice was tiny. “Sara’s your Mom?”

Alex nodded.

“You’re her Alex? The one she always misses?”

Alex’s throat made a broken sound without giving him a chance to stop it.

“Please, Alex, please don’t cry.”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me, Michael. You deserve better than a friend who’s hurt you so much. I’ll try to help your Mom and I’ll stay out of your way --”

“You’re -- I was just mad, Alex! I was just mad. I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to never see you again, please. If -- if whatever brings you here brings you again, I want to see you again. Ok?”

Alex shook his head. Michael’s voice got harder.

“I need a deal from you, Alex.”

Alex made himself say: “What’s the deal?”

“You come to see me next time and I won’t shout.”

“How about I save your mother and you’ll see me again?” Alex countered.

He heard Michael’s curls move as he shook his head. “No. No deal. Even if you can’t save her, I know you’ll try. I want to see you again even if you can’t save her. Deal.”

Alex’s brain was nearly entirely greyed out, but he managed to jerk a nod and whisper: “Deal.”

Through his peripheral vision, he saw Michael sit down in front of him, and he relaxed his grip on his knees a little.

“Thanks for the college money,” Michael said quietly. “Looks like we’ve only got about a minute left.”

Alex took a deep breath, body still totally convinced he was under threat. He forced himself to say: “How’re your classes going?”

“Top 1% of the PSAT,” Michael said, voice soft, “I’m going to aim for early admission to CMU. We’re touring colleges this summer. I’m interning this summer with a robotics professor at UNM; Marie’s driving up me and back every day. She’s a saint when she’s not after me to comb my hair properly.”

Alex could feel like he should be smiling, but he didn’t have any kind of control over that. “Sounds like a good foster Mom.”

“She is.” Michael said. Then, voice careful: “I can’t tell her she’s going to Caulfield, can I?”

Alex pressed his forehead against his forearm. “I’m in no position to tell you what the right thing to do is. But maybe ask her if she wants to know.”

“Ok,” Michael said. “Only a few seconds left until the countdown.”

Alex checked his watch: 17 seconds.

“Alex?” Michael said. Alex glanced up, vision still too blurry to do him much good.

“Yeah?”

His voice was small and very, very firm: “You deserve to be mad about what happened to you too. You don’t deserve that monster of a father.”

And any reply Alex was going to have was lost as the timestream stole his breath, the swirling impossible light surrounding him, pulling him backwards through space and time and leaving him gasping on the floor of the time chamber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The General and his son mentioned in this chapter are real people. His son really is a US Marine who served in the 1993 US military actions in Somalia, as an interpreter since he was one of the if not the only Marine who was fluent in Somali. Some reports say he really did meet with his father, but only after the attack that killed the 24 Pakistani soldiers. I changed the spelling of their names so he, and his kids, don’t find this random fic. The son left the US, went to Somalia, and did a bunch of military, political, and cultural stuff that is big and complicated. He’s been called a warlord and a politician and he’s currently in Eritrea and not working in government.


	13. I never could do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of angst, mentions of Caulfield.
> 
> Also, Alex is having a panic attack and does not handle it well. He’s working on it but it’s slow going.
> 
> And a gentle reminder that this is a dark!Alex who is not making good choices for his own health at this point in the story.

“Clear the room!”

Alex vaguely thought he’d never heard Kyle yell; he’d certainly never heard him yell at a room of what Alex’s foggy memories of the brief were telling him was full of Delta Force guys and Four Star Generals. But there he was. Yelling.

“Captain Manes requires medical attention, clear the room!”

Alex hadn’t moved from where he’d sprawled face down on the bottom of the time chamber. He figured if he kept his forehead on the rough corrugated steel of the floor, no one would see the tears. He was hoping his hitched breathing looked like he was fighting manfully-yet-silently through a life-threatening injury, not that he got bawled out by a 14-year-old and couldn’t handle it.

Flint’s voice was a true roar: “Dr Valenti, you are out of line!”

They were both standing near the side of the time chamber, like Kyle had been harassing the technicians to get Alex’s decontamination going faster by standing over them.

The problem, as was becoming thoroughly evident, was that Dr Kyle Valenti couldn’t stand _over_ anyone. The man was short. Alex had been considering teasing him about it, seeing if it really was a sore spot or one friends could tease over; he hadn’t quite worked himself up to it.

But what Kyle lacked in height, he was currently making-up for in volume; _like a Pomeranian_ , Alex thought and viciously suppressed a hysterical giggle. Kyle was puffing his chest up, like he thought that might make Flint listen to him.

Flint hissed: “The Captain will stand and thank these men for their support of this program.”

“The Captain will _not_ because he requires medical attention!” Kyle hissed back. Alex couldn’t possibly believe the Generals couldn’t hear them, because _he_ could hear them through alien-designed plate glass designed to keep out the force of a bomb if he was so stupid as to bring one back with him. 

“Alex is fine, Kyle!” Flint’s voice was getting higher and something in Alex’s back tensed hard; Manes men hated to sound feminine and always took it out on anyone who was listening.

“Alex is _not fine_ , Sergeant Manes. Do you know how I know? Because when he came back _with his leg blown off_ he sat-up and _waved_. I’ve seen the footage and it was _fucking_ awful. What do you think he has to be going through to not be getting up now?”

There was a pause, like Alex could hear the granite boulders that made-up Flint’s thought process grinding into a new configuration. Then his stage voice came on over the speakers:

“If everyone would please join us in the room next door, Captain Manes requires medical attention.”

Alex focused on breathing.

There was the sound of dress shoes on concrete, moving away.

“That means you and the Colonel too, Sergeant Manes.”

“I have something to say to my son about decorum and proper behavior before superior officers, Dr Valenti.” Alex couldn’t help it, he tucked his arm over his head. He hoped the movement was too small to see, but who was he kidding; he was in a fishbowl in the middle of the room. Absolutely everyone could see.

“Sir, I believe Captain Manes requires urgent medical attention and will for the remainder of the evening. If you need to debrief him, I respectfully request that you do so at a later date.” Kyle’s voice was barely restrained and Alex felt an absurd rush of disappointment. He had been hoping Kyle would yell at _him_ too.

“You don’t get to give me orders, Dr Valenti.” The Colonel’s voice was cold as liquid nitrogen.

“Sir, respectfully, I am not giving you orders. I am giving you my medical opinion as this Time Agent’s physician, which is what the Time Agency pays me to do.”

A long silence. Alex had never thought of the thought process in his father’s head as involving granite boulders. He’d always thought it was more like mercury: unpredictable; slippery; poisonous.

“Have it your way, Dr Valenti. But make sure he is presentable for the Generals in 30 minutes.”

“Sir, I cannot commit to a timeline until I can examine him. I ask that he be excused from the reception and I will of course send him early if he is able to.”

Another long, slick silence. Then: “I will require a complete report of his injuries, if any.”

“Of course, sir.” Kyle said.

Alex watched himself from above, body on the ground. 

The sound of boots. 

The lab’s door slammed. 

Then Kyle’s voice, a whole heap kinder and quiet enough _maybe_ the microphones that infected this lab wouldn’t pick it up: “Alex, can you hear me?”

“Copy.” Alex’s voice was surprisingly strong; he had thought it would sound like a death rattle. _Clearly faking._

A hard breath from Kyle. “I hate to ask, but for me to check you out, I need you to do the regular procedure.”

“Can you cut the lights?”

“The lights? Why?”

Alex’s voice was low, strained: “Only one of the cameras is infrared and it’s on the right-hand side. All the rest won’t be able to see if it’s dark.”

“Ok, whatever you need.” The lights turned off. Kyle’s voice was soft in the darkness: “Can you stand?”

Alex gritted his teeth. _There’s nothing wrong with you, idiot, get up_ , came his father’s voice loud and clear. He tried to block it out. 

_Alex, please don’t cry._

That got him up.

Alex got undressed by the LED lights of the consoles surrounding the time chamber, scrubbing his face roughly with his hands and then with his Navy uniform, shoving the clothes by rote into the go box. He noticed Kyle had his back turned. He couldn’t imagine being more grateful than he was in that moment.

“Complete,” he said, as Kyle ran the decontamination cycle and the chamber filled with gas. Alex held his breath and counted to 15. The air filtered back out again and he got dressed in the replacement clothes, grabbing his cane.

Kyle punched the button to open the hatch on the time chamber with more force than necessary. Alex stumbled out, Kyle catching him around the waist, giving him a chance to get steady. His entire body felt slow, soft, _weak_.

“Medical bay or home?”

“Home.”

“Ok.” Kyle said. “I’m driving.”

“My bike --”

“I’ll drive you back to get it later, Alex, come _on_.”

Alex nodded, following Kyle through the back hallways to the parking lot. Alex watched himself load into the passenger seat. Then he tipped the seat back and stared at the grey felt ceiling to try to avoid Kyle’s worried eyes.

The drive back was faster than he expected; or he was losing time. 

He didn’t know.

They got back to the apartment and for a minute, the stairs looked _so tall; too tall._ Alex closed his eyes then put one foot in front of the other.

“Have you eaten?” Kyle asked.

Alex shook his head, working his way over to the couch. 

Everything hurt.

“I’m bringing you water and juice and some protein bars, that ok?”

“Sure,” Alex said, barely holding onto his manners, “Gratsi.”

“Prego?” Kyle answered, looking over at him. “We’ve just exhausted my Italian, can we stick to English for this?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, staring at his hands. _How am I going to save Nora if I can’t even talk right._ He took a deep breath: “I’m fine.”

Kyle made a frustrated noise and came back with a glass of orange juice, a glass of water, and a bowl full of wrapped protein bars.

“Water, food, debrief, in that order.”

“Yes, Doc,” Alex said, letting a bit of sass slip into his tone. Kyle rolled his eyes and snagged a protein bar.

“So, Somalia or Michael?”

“Somalia was -- bad.” Alex said, voice flat. “I don’t know if we made the right call. I’m guessing from all the Generals, it went how we expected?”

“They tell me that, before you went, ‘the Mogadishu line’ was how people described western countries’ unwillingness to step in to stop war crimes. They said, in that timeline, US soldiers died in the streets there when some kind of helicopter crashed.” Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know much about Mogadishu or Somalia.”

Alex closed his eyes, focusing on the taste of orange juice, sour and hard on his teeth: “It was a Black Hawk helicopter. There was a famous movie about it, _Black Hawk Down_.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, “Well, not anymore.” He paused. “But you don’t usually end-up non-verbal after successful missions, so I don’t think that’s it.”

Alex covered his face with his hand, leaning back into the couch, voice muffled: “I just feel so fucking _stupid_.”

“Hey,” Kyle said, and Alex could hear him leaning closer. “You’re not stupid.”

Alex just shook his head.

“Is Michael ok?” Kyle asked, voice kind.

“He _is_ ,” Alex said, voice rough. “I scared the shit out of him, but he’s fine.”

“What happened?”

“His Mom is in Caulfield. Has been, this entire time.”

“Oh,” Kyle said. “Oh shit.”

“‘Oh shit’ is right.”

“Jared and Marie, they told him?”

Alex nodded. “And I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want him hanging out with an alien-hating assassin either.”

“You don’t hate aliens, Alex. And neither do I. We just --”

“Profit from their destruction? Benefit from genocide?” Alex’s hands scrabbled at the tech under his chest, pulling his shirt down to press his nails into the skin over the lump of alien metal: “Wear their inventions like fucking war prizes under my skin?” His breathing was kicking up and all he could feel was the kick he knew was coming.

“Alex.” Kyle’s voice came from a distance. “Alex!”

“What?” Alex snapped.

“This -- I know you don’t like to use, like, diagnostic words for what you’re going through, but you’re having a panic attack.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Why not?”

Alex scowled at him: “Airmen who are diagnosed with panic disorders, depression, PTSD, or other mental health issues are liable to have their security clearance suspended pending review. If I lose my clearance, I can’t be a Time Agent. If I can’t be a Time Agent,” _what good am I “_ how can I save Michael’s mother? Save Nora Truman?”

“I can’t diagnose you with anything like that, because I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist. Nothing’s going in your file, Alex. I just need you to know it’s happening. Try to breathe and distract yourself.”

“I _am_ breathing, Kyle.” He _maybe_ took a deeper breath than he had been to say that; his head _maybe_ got a little less swirly.

“You are the _only person I’ve ever met_ who could sass me during a panic attack, but sure, go off.” Kyle took a breath. “Breathe and distract yourself. That’s the trick here. So, do that until your heart rate is down.”

“No.” Alex choked out.

“What do you mean, ‘No’?”

“No," he said again, chest aching, "I don’t have time to do that. I have to figure out a way to save Nora Truman.”

Kyle rubbed his hands over his face. “You don’t have 2 minutes to take care of yourself?”

“No!” Alex felt pressure growing on his chest, a roaring in his ears, and his hands were shaking, but he, he needed --

Kyle got up, striding into Alex’s room, and coming back with something in his hand. He gently gripped Alex’s hand and pressed it firmly into his palm.

It was the silver ball Michael had tossed him. 

Alex’s fingers closed around it. He could feel the weight inside of it moving as he moved it. He tilted his hand to the side and it gave a low chime. The other side, the same chime, but he felt the weight tapping through the metal against his palm.

“It’s the only decorative thing in your room. You’re already breathing slower. Tell me about what this is. What it means.”

“Michael gave it to me,” Alex said, feeling the cool, even skin of it. He could see the room upside-down in its reflection. “My Mom gave it to him after she went to the big pow-wow at Stanford. Bought it in San Francisco’s Chinatown. He -- Michael was using it to practice his telekinesis.” Alex held it up, letting the low lamplight reflect in its silver surface, the red edges of the rug shining back at him. “He could make it float, do tricks, without the inner bell touching the sides,” he gave a cracked laugh, “I didn’t even know it could make a sound until he tossed it to me.”

“You played catch?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, still looking at it, pain in his back from his shoulders being so tense fading with a hot rush, “It was something Marie and Jared had him doing, to practice delicate control over his powers. Why didn’t I try to free them when I found that out, when I --” his blood was pounding in his head.

“Did he just toss it to you the once?” Kyle asked, voice insistent, a gnat of self-preservation humming in his ear. 

Alex shook his head: “No, we tossed it back and forth for like 10 minutes. That’s when we talked about colleges, about what he wants to do. That’s when I got the idea to help with tuition. And I _explained_ , I _explained_ to him it -- it wasn’t _blood money_. It’s the only good that money’s ever going to do, sending him to college. I _explained_.”

“Did he listen?”

“No, not really,” then Alex defended, “But he’s 14, Kyle. It’s his job to be unreasonable and loud and opinionated. I’m the adult; it’s my job to give him space and boundaries.” He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw creaked under his skin. “Instead I huddled on the floor like a freak until _he_ calmed down, until he saw my leg and asked what had happened and I told him and he realized,” and Alex tried to keep his tone flat, keep the cracks from breaking through: “He realized how fucked up I am.”

“I think with the number of people, places, and things trying to break you, Alex Manes, you’re a fucking superhero to be as in-tact as you are. And you can get better, just like Michael’s gotten better. You just need to give yourself the space to try. Just like he has.”

“He’s just a kid, he deserves the chance.”

“So you do.”

Alex paused, rubbing a smudge off the reflective ball on his jeans, and looking at it again: “He said I deserve to feel mad about what happened to me. How -- how I grew up.”

Kyle made a sound, kind of a startled sound: “Smart kid.”

Alex worked his jaw.

“I usually just sleep this kind of thing off --”

“A panic attack?”

“Look.” Alex said, voice hard. “I really can’t call it that. I know you think I’m being avoidant or stubborn or whatever, but if one of us slips and it ends up in my file, my ability to help _anyone_ \-- Michael, Nora, Jared, Marie -- is _totally fucked_. If you for whatever reason _really_ need to call it something, can we, like, call it something else?”

“So you admit you’re having panic attacks.”

Alex had made hardened Marines quail with the glare he was currently directing at Kyle Valenti. The doctor shrugged and opened a protein bar for him.

Kyle's voice was purposefully casual when he said: “How about we talk about your papaya allergy. ‘Are you having a papaya allergy, Captain Manes?’ or ‘Do you need a second to deal with your papaya allergy before moving on?’”

Alex huffed a laugh. “That sounds dumb as hell.”

Kyle nodded: “So is pretending your untreated trauma and shitty working conditions haven’t resulted in you having panic attacks.” He spread his hands wide. “But here we are.”

Alex rolled his eyes, fingers tight on the ball: “Fine. Whatever. I’m going to go to sleep.”

“Take the water with you!”

If Alex Manes had had telekinesis, he would have used it to dump the water right on top of Kyle Valenti’s head. As it was, he glowered at him, downed the water, and stuffed three of the protein bars into his pocket before heading to bed, the silver ball carefully clutched in his fingers as the feeling slowly returned to them.

\--

“I got my next two missions for the next week,” Alex said when Kyle joined him for breakfast, looking bleary-eyed and exhausted. He tapped the screen of his work computer where he was nearly done with his first pass through on the briefings. “Money drop in Djibouti in 2005. Then a targeting update in Kuwait in 1992.”

“1992. Shit, I’d forgotten you started that young.”

Alex shrugged. “It was my first ride-along mission. The pictures are pretty cute.”

Kyle shook his head, heading towards where he kept the cereal. “I think I’ll pass.”

“There’s an omelet for you in the oven,” Alex said, and Kyle froze.

“An -- an omelet?”

Alex nodded, trying to keep his eyes on his screen. “I was a royal shit to you yesterday and you were just trying to help. You seem to communicate best through food, and I have no idea how to make doughnuts, but I looked-up how to make an omelet.” He gestured to his own empty plate at his elbow, last egg crumbs now long cold: “It’s pretty good.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, getting a Captain America-themed oven mitt out of his upper cupboard and pulling out the hot plate with a omelet stuffed with chopped green peppers and black olives on it. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Alex shrugged. “It’s the least I could do. You didn’t sign-up to have a psycho roommate.”

“You’re not a psycho, Alex. Don’t -- what would Rosa say about you talking about yourself that way?”

Alex hid his face behind a glass of water as he blanched. “Low blow, Valenti.”

Kyle sat at the table, hissing as he brushed his pinky against the oven-hot plate. He cut off a slice of the omelet and looked at Alex seriously -- well, as seriously as anyone with floppy hair and a pillow-crease on his neck could look. “Alex, seriously, negative self-talk doesn’t help anyone. You’re lucky I don’t have a way of telling Michael on you.”

Alex felt his eyes get wide for a second. 

Kyle paused before he took another bite: “You’re sure you don’t want to track him down? In this year?”

Alex shook his head: “I still don’t want to know more about his future than he does. It’s still not fair.”

“Ok,” Kyle sighed, stuffing a second bite into his mouth, glancing at his phone. He sent a quick text and said: “Want to get coffee at Crashdown before heading into work?”

“Yeah, I scheduled my debrief with the Colonel for 0800 hours.” 

Kyle’s scowl was immediate and intense: “Why would you do that to yourself.”

Alex sighed, popping the screen of the laptop closed. “I’m hoping to have a nice evening with you and Rosa and try out that Planet 7 place again before I go to Djibouti, if you’re both free.” Alex began to clear his plate, balancing on his cane, going over to wash them in the sink.

“Ok?”

Alex had his back turned, so he didn’t have to keep the grimace off his face as he said: “If he’s going to yell and freak out, that means it’ll happen first thing in the morning, which gives me the entire day to cool down enough to have fun tonight. If he gives me punishment PT or something else to screw-up my day, I won’t be behind on briefings, because I’ve already finished them.” 

“I wish you didn’t have to plan that way.”

Alex shrugged and moved towards the door, snagging his personal laptop and bag before heading out. “I’ll meet you at Crashdown?”

“Ok.” Kyle said, expression pained. “I’ll see you there.”

\--

The guy with the black cowboy hat was at the counter. Alex thought of going over, practicing introducing himself; but he knew he’d get more than enough practice at Planet 7 tonight. He went to the booth he and Kyle usually kept warm and pulled out his work phone, looking up the Kuwait briefing. 1992. His first mission. The earliest he’d ever gone back. _The farthest I might ever go back_. 

An idea.

Liz broke his concentration, ambling over with a sleepy smile to slide into the booth and lay her face gently on the table. 

“What’s his deal?” Alex asked sotto voce, pointing with his mug of hot cocoa at the guy at the counter. 

She sat-up, eyes jerking over towards the cowboy. She sort-of froze, then she was back: “Oh, he’s waiting.”

“For?”

Her smile was soft and sad: “Someone he knows really well. This guy he loves, he’s on a long trip and he’ll be here in a few weeks. But in the meantime, we’re all keeping him company.”

“That’s really sweet of you.”

Her smile got warmer: “It’s what we do for family. Kyle coming?”

Alex nodded. “But I already fed him, so probably just coffee for him.”

“Ooh, Alex Manes, branching out in the culinary world. We’ll have to save a spot for you in the kitchen.”

Alex grinned: “No way I could handle that kind of pressure, Ortecho.”

“Damn straight,” she said and headed back behind the counter.

“Or, not so straight,” he muttered to himself and he could have sworn he heard the man at the counter chuckle.

\--

 **Alex** : I’ve got extra PT this afternoon to ‘ensure I’m in proper shape to carry out my duties’ so I’ll be in the gym until about 5; thanks for the ride in this morning. Plans ok for tonight?

 **Kyle** : Sure, stay safe. I can medical exempt you if you’d like. A papaya allergy, for example.

Alex was still breathing through the screaming-at he’d gotten that morning from the Colonel, but he was following Kyle’s advice and distracting himself. He _was_ also technically doing the punishment PT he’d been ordered to. He was doing that _and_ using the offline copy of the Caulfield files he kept on his personal laptop, propped on top of the treadmill’s laptop holder. He had a screen protector on it, so not even the not-so-subtle cameras in the gym could read what he was working on.

**Alex** : Thanks, I’m good.

He’d found the intake pictures of Nora Truman first-thing and had to sprint a quarter mile to force himself back into the present. 

_She had Michael’s eyes._

He was trying to keep himself from diving too deep into her file, just trying to get a sense of where she was now and where she’d been at different places on her timeline.

Hers was much simpler than his. He’d started a notes file to keep track of it, but it only had 4 lines:

Pre-1947: Unknown  
1947: Landed on Earth  
1948: Captured by Harlan Manes and Tripp Manes.  
1948 - 2018: Captive at Caulfield Prison.

No little trips to the Middle East, no successful escapes in her record. Absolutely no overlaps between her timeline and Alex’s, except for the first afternoon tour he did of Caulfield and the visit to see Marie and Jared. But it also seemed like nearly nothing new had been revealed or developed since the mid-80s. That meant that the affect on the timestream of something changing in her timeline during his lifetime wouldn’t echo out and disturb other timelines as much as the average sci fi reader might have feared.

He had an idea of how to keep his promise to Michael; Kyle just wasn’t going to like it. _Kyle would have to deal_.

Michael wasn’t going to like it either.

_I’ll ask him what he thinks. Then if he hates it, at least I’ll know._

Alex frowned and kept running, thinking through his slowly forming plan step by step by step.

\--

Planet 7 was a little more crowded when he and Rosa walked in, Kyle at their backs. The throbbing pulse of the music, the smell of too many people with outdoor jobs packed into one place, and the underlying musk of spilled beer. But when Alex saw a half-dozen queer folks wrapped-up in each other in the booths, it was like the last knot tied around his arteries during this morning’s dressing-down came unraveled.

“So, what’s your goal tonight?” Rosa half-shouted in his ear. “Have a real, live conversation without losing it?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “I was thinking of learning to dance.”

“Ooh!” Rosa grinned, turning to face him, draping her arms over his shoulders, shimming a good foot away. “You ready to get your freak on, chico?”

Alex held his hands up in front of him in the space between them: “Be gentle.”

Her grin was as sharp as a shark’s: “Never.”

Rosa actually was, impossibly, gentle. She showed Alex where to put his hands, got him to maybe-kind-of move his hips and not just his shoulders, and generally teased him until his sides hurt from laughing. When someone turned on UV lights overhead and everyone else’s white shoelaces and shirts glowing bright unavoidable white, Rosa insisted he roll-up his sleeves so she could see his happy alien tattoo.

They only lasted a few songs before he begged off and Rosa got to showing someone _her_ copy of the alien tat. Kyle had gotten picked-up by a bright-eyed Diné man in a flaring white cowboy hat and chaps. Alex tried to find a bit of brick wall to prop-up, but there wasn’t much space. All of the booths had frosted glass privacy screens that flashed rainbows at eye-height in the neon light. He finally leaned against the back of one of the booths where it arced away from the wall, his back to the patrons laughing and clinking their glasses inside of it. 

“Not a fan of dancing?” Came a rough voice from the booth behind him. He glanced through the mostly-opaque glass; there were a half-dozen people crowding into it, laughing, bottles covering the table; but a black hat he thought he might recognize was sitting closest to him, back to him, right on the outside edge of the booth. Without the booth, they would have been standing back-to-back. 

Alex thought it might be easier, like this; not able to see how his words landed.

He turned to scan the crowd again, leaning on the booth, hand fiddling with his watch: “I’m getting used to it.”

“Nice tat,” the man said. Alex glanced down.

“Yeah, Rosa has one just like it.”

“Copy cat.”

“Maybe,” Alex said. He slipped his watch off, the bright stars of the Antares system flaring in the impossible moonlight of the UV light: “This one’s pretty unique though.”

“Can I?” Came the voice, and if he’d thought it was rough before, Alex thought the man sounded like he was half-drowning. He slipped his hand down by his side, fingers dangling in the space between them. Even if he wanted to look, he wouldn’t be able to see more than the man’s black Stetson.

But the man’s fingers reached out, slipping around Alex’s wrist and turning it towards him. Alex had no idea a light touch could feel so much like burning, like his entire nervous system had become a star system, an impossible fury of flaring nerves and pumping veins.

“Made with love, it looks like,” the man said and Alex bit his lip.

“I don’t know about that. But made by a friend for sure.”

“Hmm,” the man said, hand still blazing starlight on his wrist.

“Alex!” came Kyle’s shout. The man in the black hat dropped his wrist. Kyle hustled over to him, Rosa in tow.

“Ready to go? We should go out the back. Let’s go!” And Rosa latched onto the wrist the man had just dropped, giving Alex a tug away. His mind was still spinning and before he could think of some way to object, to tell them to leave him alone, to let him _go_ and see that man’s _face_ they were outside in the cold air and Rosa was asking him to walk her home and Kyle was prattling on about the beautiful man he’d danced with and Alex was certain that, like a mirage, the man in the bar would be long gone before he went back for him.

\--

Djibouti was as much of a milk run as Alex had expected it to be. He’d handed over the extra $100,000 that the Time Analysts had predicted would make the difference between a school turning into a terrorist training camp and remaining a school. That had taken about an hour’s drive, an hour’s time spent having tea, and an hour’s drive back to the base. He spent his remaining 21 hours working on his plan, writing out his timeline, preparing his files. He’d need to cross-reference it with the database when he got back to the Time Agency, but it helped, going through every mission, approximating lives saved, lives lost, missions failed, and missions accomplished.

\--

Alex opened his eyes in a stairwell. He looked up and up and up, the 4-step levels of rust-red painted stairs continuing for at least 3 floors above him and 3 more below. There were scuff-marks on the walls and the faint smell of young adult bodies just learning about deodorant and body spray. There was the sound of raucous laughter on the floor above. 

Alex stood, pushing the heavy metal doors open to find -- Michael, back propped against the white cinder-block wall of what looked like a college common room, a white Macbook Pro on his ripped-knee jeans. His face was nearly entirely covered by his curls and the sky in the window was pitch black with cloud cover. He was sitting on the wall-to-wall carpet that had, at one point, been a dark Navy blue, but at this point was so stained and faded it looked more like a particularly polluted bit of ocean. This floor was entirely silent, all of the lights under the doors around them off and dark.

“Alex!” Michael said, scrambling to his feet, massive smile taking over his entire face. There was something familiar about how he looked, something Alex was struggling to place. He took a few lurching steps towards Alex with his arms out before stopping himself, face flushing: “How’re you?”

“I’m good, Michael,” Alex couldn’t help smiling, stepping forward to collapse onto one of the dilapidated couches slung across the room. Michael sat on the other side, tapping a tattoo onto his knees and glancing over at Alex before looking back down at his hands.

“So, how long has it been for you since you last saw me?”

Alex frowned a little: “Three days.”

Michael whistled: “Three days -- ok, so, for me, it’s been 16 months.”

“So -- September 2005?”

“Yep.”

“You’re in college?”

Michael’s grin was massive: “Can you tell where?”

Alex looked outside the window: a 2am sky, muggy and hot.

“Somewhere on the East Coast; California never gets this humid.”

“True.”

“So, MIT or Carnegie Mellon?”

Another niggling thought, but Alex was trying to focus on this moment, so he pushed it to the side.

“Boston was just too packed for me -- maybe for grad school, but for undergrad, I don’t need the distraction of a city with a quarter-million college students. Also, CMU has a biomedical wearable’s lab and a prosthetics lab I was really excited about.”

“So let me guess -- dual majoring in Physics and Computer Science?” Alex said, heart feeling light.

“Got it in one,” Michael grinned. Then his face grew more serious. “Hey, I wanted to apologize. For how I behaved. The last time you saw me,”

Alex was shaking his head before Michael finished speaking. “Michael --”

“No,” Michael said, holding up a hand, “I know I’m allowed to be mad. But I don’t want to be someone who scares the people who care about me. Not even when I’m mad. It’s -- it’s something I’m working on. With a counselor on campus.” He said this last part twisting his hands between his knees. 

Alex tried to give an encouraging smile: “Counseling is a really good idea, if you’ve grown-up with some of the stuff you did. A really, really good idea. I’m proud of you.”

Michael’s smile brightened again.

Alex took a breath and said: “I actually wanted to talk to you about the thing we talked about, last time we spoke.” Alex put his hands palms-up on his knees. “I have a plan, but it involves changing your past. So I wanted to ask you about it.”

“Alex, I shouldn’t have said it was your fault --”

Alex held up a hand. “I want to help.”

Michael bit his lip and nodded. “Tell me about the plan. It’s,” he paused, voice going lower, “It’s to get my Mom free?”

Alex nodded: “So I told you about going to Somalia in 1993.”

“Yeah, and it’s still really fucking horrifying that your Dad brought you there.”

Alex barrelled on: “My first mission was to Kuwait when I was 2. I looked over my entire timeline, and there’s no times I was in Roswell or could get to Caulfield that I also think the Colonel, my father, would actually send me back for.”

“So it’s impossible?” Michael said, and there was the tiniest of tremors in his voice. 

Alex shook his head: “No, we just have to think about it from another angle. Most of my job is understanding what people want badly enough for them to sacrifice something else to get it, finding the linchpin that allowed something to happen and twisting it so something else happens. Remove the linchpin, adjust it, and the whole axle is oriented differently to the wheel. So, who or what is the linchpin to Caulfield?”

Michael just shook his head, glancing down the hallway, but the fire doors were still propped open and the entire corridor quiet.

Alex continued: “If I could go back further than my own timeline, the answer would be my ancestors, who took the refugees prisoner. From the other side, it might be my ancestors in the 70s who failed to notice Marie and Jared being found in the desert, I believe when their pods hatched them.”

“That’s what they told me,” Michael said in a quiet voice, tugging a curl over his face.

Alex smiled: “My plan keeps them free too. Don’t worry about it.”

Michael was still frowning, but Alex kept going. “So, where’s the moment in time when my timeline overlapped with some major decision-maker around Caulfield if not the prison itself. What is the earliest possible date I could get not just your Mom, not just Marie and Jared, but _everyone_ free from Caulfield?”

“When?” Michael said.

“1992.” Alex said.

“But, how?” Michael said, expression twisting.

Alex’s face felt grim and glad all at the same time: “I’ll make my Dad a deal.”

Michael looked like he was going to interrupt and Alex pushed forward, needing to finish, needing to tell someone the plan he’d spent every waking moment working through his head since Michael had called him a monster: “I’ll threaten to take my child self away from him. If he doesn’t agree to my terms, I will walk into his bedroom, pick my 2-year-old self up, and walk away, transport us back to 2018 and raise him properly. That’s the threat. The carrot is I’ll tell the Colonel, give him signed letters for every year from 1992 to 2018, agreeing to allow myself to be trained to be a Time Agent in whatever way he thinks is best. In exchange, he empties Caulfield and razes it to the ground.”

Alex smiled, but Michael looked like he was going to cry, words not coming. 

Alex tried to explain: “That year, Michael. He would have to empty Caulfield _that year_. You would have grown-up with your Mom. Marie and Jared will never go there. There were 72 aliens alive in 1992. I can require they be freed with stipends for the harm caused to them, enough to cover their living expenses and care.”

“Where does all this money come from?” Michael asked, voice distant.

Alex grin turned wry: “There’s an entire group of time agents who advise on stocks and bonds; we have all the money we could ever need.”

“Huh,” Michael said, fiddling with a loose thread on his jeans, curls shading his eyes. “So you want to go back in time, tell you Dad it’s ok to abuse you, in exchange for my family being freed.”

Alex blinked hard a few times, then tried to say in an even tone: “I’m telling him it’s ok to do what’s already been done. Nothing will change for me; nothing. But as a result, 72 people will be freed. That seems like a good exchange to me.”

“No.” Michael said.

Alex wasn’t sure he heard right. “What?”

“No!” Michael said, turning to him, face full of tears, voice carefully quiet: “I said no, Alex. You don’t deserve what happened to you, any more than I deserved Mr Ridley or my Mom being taken or _any_ of it. You don’t deserve being hit or yelled at or scared. You don’t deserve growing up in war zones you had nothing to do with. You don’t deserve to lose your childhood so I can have mine. If that happened, and I never met you --” his faced screwed up in anguish.

“But you wouldn’t _need_ to meet me,” Alex said, voice hushed, “if you had your Mom --”

“I would probably still end-up in foster care! In your time, she’s been tortured for 70 years -- in 1992, it would have been 44 years. That’s too much for anyone to survive whole. She’ll need care her whole life --”

“Wouldn’t that be better than being locked in Caulfield?” Alex was trying to get Michael to see, _why couldn’t he just see? That this was worth it? This is what Alex is for? _

“Of course it would be, Alex! But you’re not a pawn to be traded away for someone else’s toy gambit. You’re not a _thing_.” He was breathing hard, keeping his tone low and reasonable. “Remember what you said, about Granny Weatherwax? What’s sin, Alex?”

“Treating people as things.” Alex said, voice matching Michael's carefully measured tone.

“Including yourself.” Michael emphasized. “ _Including yourself,_ Alex. Please, don’t do this for me. I want my Mom free, but -- don’t do this.”

“Michael, I may not get another chance. They don’t send me that far back very often. It could be months or years -- and if I die on one of these missions, it’s never going to happen.” 

A stubborn tear fought its way down Michael’s cheek. He was fighting to keep his voice reasonable: “I don’t want this for you, Alex. You can find another way. Please. I don’t want to forget you.”

Alex shook his head: “I don’t want to do this without your permission, but I don’t know how else to save your Mom, Michael.”

Michael closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands, and took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. Alex checked his watch: 308 seconds.

Michael pushed his hair back from his face and it slammed home, the thing that had been niggling in the back of his mind this entire time.

Dr Guerin. 

Michael looked _exactly_ like Dr Guerin, if Alex had met him when he was a teenager.

Alex’s eyes flared wide, and he stood up, putting distance between him and Michael, back going against one of the tall white pillars diving the room.

“What is it?” Michael said. And Alex shook his head. _Focus,_ he growled at himself. _You can freak out later_.

“Nothing, just -- you looked like someone I met in Doha.” He took a deep breath: “Please, Michael, let me make-up for some of the hell my family has put yours through. Please.”

Michael raked his curls back again, biting his lip. “It was 3 days for you and 16 months for me.”

“What?”

“When are you going to Kuwait? In your time?”

“5 days. They need the extra set-up time to get the cash needed for the mission.”

“Ok,” Michael said, standing and pacing backwards and forwards. “That messes with my project timeline, but I can do it. I know I can do it.”

“Do what -- Michael, what are you talking about?”

Michael ignored him. “The next time you see me, can you bring your complete timeline? The first time around and the second?”

“Sure? I guess -- Michael, why do you need my timeline?”

He gave Alex a hard look. “This is a stupid idea, but I know how to fix it. I can fix it. Do what you are going to do. I’ll clean up your mess later. And know when you come to see me again, I won’t have forgotten you. I _won’t._ ”

“Michael,” Alex said, voice soft, “You can’t just will yourself to not be affected by the timestream. That’s not how it works.”

“You just watch me.” 

Then Michael stood and stepped towards Alex. “I need one more thing from you. In addition to your timeline.”

“What, Michael?”

“I need to take a look at that implant in your chest.”

Alex glanced at his watch: 216 seconds.

“Ok, just -- don’t touch it.” 

Michael nodded. Alex unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, pulling his henley down enough Michael could see it. He pulled out a phone and held it up. Alex nodded and he took photos of the implanted device with his flip camera phone.

26 seconds. Michael took the last picture.

He took a step back and looked in Alex’s eyes. “This is a stupid, self-sacrificing plan. And you are the bravest man I’ve ever met. You deserve so much better than what this world has done to you. And I’m going to make sure you get it.” He looked down at his scuffed-up Converses, and worked his jaw, chewing on his words. But all he said when he finally spoke was: “Stay safe, Alex.” 

“You too, Michael.” Alex said and Michael snapped his eyes up to meet his.

It was one long breath later, and he was being pulled back, back, back into the timestream.


	14. I can't confront you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we're drilling down a bit into Alex's issues with touch, which come both from internalized homophobia and the trauma we all already know about. It takes a lot of talking, but there's real, good change that comes from it.
> 
> There's a discussion of child sexual abuse in this chapter. There's no details at all, but there's a discussion of what grooming is -- and isn't. It seems like there isn't a standard "implied child sexual abuse" tag, so I'm using the "child abuse" tag. I also added an "internalize homophobia" tag here, since we're going to get into that.

Alex was forcing himself to standing before the timestream had finished dissolving around him. He had a smile fixed on his face, hand up and waving. The crowd was smaller today, faces of women who had survived to adulthood when their schools were left unbombed, their roads unmined, their families unbroken by a war that never came. Boko Haram was never a real military threat to the United States, but Alex had a particular fondness for ripping their networks to shreds and watching their raking claws disappear from so many lives. 

His smile turned real when he met a young woman’s eyes and she grinned back at him.

Then it faded: “If you would all please join me in the reception room,” Flint’s voice came over the speaker system, his eyes on Alex. “Captain Manes needs to go through the decontamination process. As a reminder, any changes made by the Time Agency can be unmade, so please refrain from sharing what you saw here today with anyone who was not in this room.”

Alex rolled his eyes; Flint never reminded the loose-lipped Generals to keep their traps shut; but give him a roomful of Chadian, Nigerien and Nigerian women to chastise and he’d jump at the chance.

Alex caught Kyle’s eye and jerked his head to the side. He hoped he would take it to mean he would meet him at the truck.

Alex began to undress, wishing he could have the privacy he’d had on the last mission, but unwilling to kick up a fit about it and risk the consequences.

He found Kyle in the parking lot, leaning back against his car. The sun was bright and high; it was a warm, clear morning in New Mexico.

“You ok to go for a drive?” Alex asked.

Kyle nodded. “All I’ve got today is your debrief and we can do that in the car. Any particular destination or are we just driving?”

Alex frowned, mind working: “I’ve got a place in mind. I need -- I need someplace to talk.”

Kyle’s face grew serious and he handed over his keys. “Alright. I’m here.”

“Thanks.”

\--

The drive to El Capitan Reef in the Guadalupe National Park in Texas took about 2 hours, which was how long Kyle’s bi-monthly diagnostic question set took. He didn’t ask Alex what he was on his mind, why they weren't heading home; he just let him get to it in his own time. 

All of the farms alongside the highway were fed with artisanal springs, the kind that push themselves up out of the ground without pumps; the cotton the farmers planted grew in perfect circles, not a stalk surviving outside of the radius of the water sprayer.

As they crossed the border, Kyle tilted his head against the passenger window and said: “I wish I’d brought my cowboy hat.”

Alex hadn’t felt a smile rise, though he knew he wanted it to.

As Alex slowed to pay the entrance fee to the national park, he murmured to Kyle: “Mom took me hiking here a few times, after she realized what Jesse was doing. To try to give me another perspective of time.”

He pulled to a stop in the parking lot of a hiking trail and hauled himself out, glancing at the thousand foot of raw red cliff-face the National Park Service called El Capitan. It smelled like gas from the wells surrounding the park mixing with the hot, oily smell of sage in the morning sun. It felt a bit like having an oven opened up directly over his head, standing in the Texas sunshine; it felt a bit like he might be purified by it if he stood there long enough.

“We going up the whole thing?” Kyle said, loading bottles of water into his backpack.

Alex shook his head: “I didn’t bring my climbing gear -- I just want to get close enough to touch the bottom of the reef.”

“Reef like a coral reef?”

“Michelle never brought you out here?”

Kyle shook his head. Alex shrugged on a spare messenger bag and filled it with water and snacks before they began to hike up the shallow slope to a hundred-foot-high echelon of tumbled earth at the base of the edifice, striped in rusty red and greys that sloped-up in tiers to the base of the cliff.

Alex answered his earlier question: “I want to get us high enough we can see El Capitan and the horizon.”

“Got it.” Kyle said. “I did a semester at Johns Hopkins during undergrad, to get a sense of the world east of the Rockies,” Kyle matched Alex’s pace as he worked his way up the red packed earth of the trail; they were the only ones out there, the wind and the sun their only observers. “I went on a roadtrip with some friends to an alt-rock festival called Forecastle in Louisville, taking turns driving an old Jeep. We all loaded up into it in the morning, went through our classes, then headed out that evening. All of my friends were from western states, and without talking about it, we each packed a gallon of water per-person per-day.” He laughed, hitching his backpack over his shoulder, water bottles sliding against each other. “We told our friends in Baltimore that and they were surprised -- ‘There’s no deserts between here and Kentucky,’ they said, and ‘There’s towns the whole way there.’” He smiled at Alex and Alex found himself returning it. “We couldn’t explain -- you always carry a gallon of water per-person, per-day, if you’re leaving the city limits. It’s not -- it’s not about the likelihood of needing it. It’s just what being responsible looks like west of the Rockies.”

Alex nodded. “That’s like me and my knife.”

Kyle cocked an eyebrow and Alex slipped his hand into his back pocket, pulling out a black flip knife and flipping it open, twisting it so the sunlight shone along the honed edge. “Unless there’s a really good reason not to, I always have some kind of blade on me. Never know when you’re going to need to cut yourself free of restraints or cut the wiring to a building -- or just get a box open quickly. But I’ve been places where it just worried people.”

Kyle narrowed his eyes, eying the blade: “I could see that. Maybe don’t do that trick at Planet 7; I don’t think everyone will take it how you mean it.”

Alex flipped the knife so the handle landed solidly in his palm. “If you say so,” and returned it to his back pocket.

“So, a reef?” Kyle asked.

Alex nodded: “It’s a fossil reef. Nearly the whole thing is underground now, but because of continental uplift, enough of it’s exposed we can see it. Millions and billions of tiny lifeforms built it in a shallow inland sea for millions and millions of years. Where we’re going, it’s where the sea currents broke off massive pieces of it. Just, ripped them out of their homes, smashed them against the seafloor, exposing the inner life of the reef. Over and over and over again. When the sea drained, the reef settled underground, except for this bit.” He gestured to the towering cliff face their trail was winding towards. There was a trickle of water over the face of it; the remains of the overnight shower, working its way down the rock.

“What did your Mom want you to learn about, coming here?”

Alex frowned: “Something about persistence. Something about growth. Something about how movements move us and we make our biggest impacts when we work in groups. I’m still figuring it out. But I wanted to come here because -- it’s one of those places -- you know those places where, when you go there, you feel like you’re resetting from start? Like you left a piece of yourself there?”

“Seeing my Mom is like that,” Kyle said.

Alex glanced over at him and then back at the arcing horizon. “I’m still figuring out how it works, with people.” He took a breath. “But with places, with _this_ place, it feels like -- like I left my best self here. So if I can only come back here, just see here, touch the wall of the mountain, smell the sweet sage air, I’ll remember how to be my best self.”

Kyle tipped his head to the side, looking Alex up and down. “Did something happen on the mission that made you feel like you’re not your best self?”

“Let’s wait until we get to the reef.”

“Ok.” Kyle took a few more steps and said: “It’s gotta be something bad, right? For us to go all this way?”

Alex nodded, hands forming into fists; he forced them to unclench.

“Alex --”

“Can we just wait? Please?” His voice was strained.

Kyle didn’t say anything, but he didn’t try to get Alex to talk either. He could see the end of the trail, there, where it touched the base of the reef. Every single rock there had been formed by a tiny, living thing, just trying to make a home. Just trying to live.

There was broken earth along the base, and Alex stepped carefully over it, following the curve of the embankment until they were in the shade. Only then did he let himself take the final step and press the full, hot flat of his hand against the searing rock.

The rock was rough, far rougher than the stones he usually saw around Roswell. It was hard against his hand and he pressed until he could feel the bones flex. He tried to imagine the heat of it radiating through him, pouring through him, just, wiping him away. Wiping him out and coming back with something clean. Something good. 

He spoke to the reef: “Dr Guerin is Michael.”

Kyle sucked in a breath, feet shifting in the gravel.

“How do you know?”

Alex gave a choked laugh, leaning closer to press his face against the grey rock of the reef. “I recognized him, Kyle. I -- he finally grew up old enough I could _recognize_ him.”

“He was 15? The last time you saw him?” 

“Yeah.” Alex said, his voice tiny and quiet. “Does that make me an evil person?”

“‘An evil person’ -- _what?_ ” Kyle said, hand on Alex’s shoulder, gentle turning him around. Alex kept a hand on the reef, needing the rough contact of it. “Why _on earth_ would make think you’re evil, Alex?”

Alex shook his head: “I -- I _liked_ Dr Guerin. Like, if I’d met him when he was older, I would have wanted to sleep with him. I wanted to, a little, when I did meet him, but he was 20 and a baby and --” Alex’s jaw clenched too tight for him to talk and he stared down at the ground.

Kyle stepped closer, hand still firm on his elbow. “Alex, I’m going to need you to spell this out for me, because I don’t get what’s going on in that corkscrew brain of yours.”

“A teenager, Kyle! I was attracted to a teenager!” His voice echoed off the reef, coming back distorted, twisted. _Just like me._

Kyle frowned, taking that in. His voice was neutral, careful when he said: “Were you attracted to Michael when you saw him last?”

Alex’s face screwed-up like he’d taken a massive bite out of a lemon: “No. No way. He’s a kid, Kyle.”

“Ok,” Kyle said. “So you _weren’t_ attracted to a teenager.”

“No -- but yes, Kyle. I was, because I liked him later. It’s, it’s what everyone always said, about,” he waved his hand at himself, “About gay men. That we’re predators. That we aren’t safe for kids to be around.”

Kyle frowned, looking at the sky, and then at Alex.

“So you weren’t attracted to him at 15; you were at 20, but you didn’t do anything about it because of the age gap.”

“I --” Alex started but Kyle shook his head and kept going.

“Are you telling me you did something -- you did something inappropriate?”

”I would _never_ \-- but --”

Kyle talked over him, drilling down: “Have you ever touched Michael?”

“I,” and Alex thought about it. “I offered to give him a hug, when he was 8; but he didn’t want to, so I left him alone. I medsprayed him, but didn’t touch him.” He thought harder. “No. Never.”

“Have you ever talked about sex with him in a way that wasn’t something he wanted, that he was asking questions about, that wasn’t about safe sex education?”

“No -- when he wanted to come out to me, and we talked a little bit. I told him what being nonbinary was and the definition of the word bisexual.” This felt like a debriefing and Alex’s brain was so much more comfortable answering these questions than asking the ones he’d been grilling himself with since he’d realized who Dr Guerin was in that dorm common room in Pittsburgh.

“So, you see a young person for 1000 seconds a year. You’ve never touched him. You’ve never said anything sexual or inappropriate.”

Alex’s voice was hard: “It’s grooming, Kyle. Raising someone you want to date later.”

“It is not, and if you’d spent any time with someone who’d been groomed, you would know that, Alex.” Kyle’s voice was cold, precise. “Those are homophobic lies you grew-up with, and that’s not your fault, but it’s also not accurate. You’re not raising Michael. Not even you can do that in 1000 seconds a year; and you’re not grooming him for anything. Grooming involves: targeting the victim; isolating them; gaining their trust; controlling and concealing the relationship; and then abuse.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “You didn’t pick him; you’ve done everything in your power to make him _less_ isolated, to give him _more_ adults to go to; you never asked for his trust, only asked him to do things that helped him get a better life; you never tried to control the relationship or conceal it from me, and when he revealed it to his caregivers you told him it was the right thing to do.” Kyle’s hand came up to grip Alex’s shoulder, fingers tight enough Alex had to pay attention. “And you never abused him, Alex. You’re a friend to a kid. It’s a good thing. A normal thing, for adults to support young people, to use good boundaries.” 

He took a deep breath. “Michael has a lot more time to think about what he wants than you do, because of how this all seems to work. He might develop a crush on you, and your job as an adult is to ignore it, to set a clear boundary, and keep protecting him. _The way you have been._ And if, someday, when you’re both independent adults, both in an emotional and material space able to see if you want to get a drink or a coffee, then you can do that with a clear conscience.”

Alex couldn’t keep Kyle’s eye-contact any longer and looked at the reef under his palm. “Then why do I feel like I did something terrible?”

Kyle patted his shoulder and then stepped back, finding a stone to perch on while staying in the shade of the reef and rummaging in his backpack. He pulled out two, opened them both, and handed one to Alex.

“That would be the internalized queerphobia. It bounces around your head, making you think everything you do is sexual, every touch a come-on, everything you do is wrong. Specifically, for most gay and bi guys, that you’re weak, sick, unlovable, unwelcome, pariah, harmful to children, and unlikely to live to 30. Women and nonbinary people face other versions of this, though the ‘harmful to children’ thing is pretty pervasive. Stuff about ugliness, being unfit for motherhood, unwelcome in femme spaces, destructive to society, selfish, slutty, confused, less likely to be believed if they’re mistreated, a predator to other women, or inherently lying. Bisexuals,” and he saluted Alex with his water bottle, “we get the special entré platter of all of that crap, plus being unwelcome in some straight spaces and some queer spaces, and no one seeing us as queer without a lot of effort if we date someone perceived as a different gender. I can go through the shit everyone in whole alphabet soup has to deal with, but it all sucks equally.” He shook his head. “Queerphobia’s a hell of a drug.”

Alex lowered himself to sit on a stone, movements careful and precise. His voice was very, very quiet when he said: “How do you get out from under it?”

Kyle tilted his head: “Therapy. Community. Luck. A lot of time and hard work and friends to help you.”

Alex closed his eyes. “Sounds exhausting.” He took a long drink of the cold water. He realized he was thirsty and finished the bottle. 

Kyle made a sound that might have been a chuckle if he wasn’t trying so hard to be serious: “As exhausting as spending hours thinking you’re evil because you made friends with a child? Or having a pa -- a papaya allergy because your father is a bastard?”

Alex took a breath. “That reminds me -- the other thing.”

Kyle’s eyes got wide and he broke open a protein bar.

“We don’t have to drive another 2 hours to find a suitably dramatic venue for this other thing, do we? Because I was hoping to cook paella tonight with the shrimp I bought when you were in Djibouti.” Kyle didn’t wait for his answer before taking a big, fortifying bite of the chocolate chip protein bar.

Alex shook his head, letting a little acid slip into his tone: “No, I don’t need a venue change for this. Thank you for your kind consideration of my mental health needs.”

“Anytime,” Kyle smirked, chocolate in his teeth.

“Gross.” Alex said, reaching out his hand for a protein bar. He took a bite then looked out at the perfect crystal blue of the horizon.

“I -- before I figured out that Michael was Dr Guerin, I told him what my plan was. To save his mother.” Alex’s mouth twisted and he took another bite of the protein bar. “He was upset about it but he made a point of not yelling. Apparently, he’s been talking to a counselor.”

Kyle raised his eyebrows: “One, points to the teenager for getting counseling. You should take note. Two, now I’m worried about this plan, because so far, Michael has a much better sense of Alex preservation than you do.”

Alex held back the ridiculous urge to stick his tongue out at Kyle. “I’ve lived this long.”

“You’ve survived this long. I’m not entirely sure it’s the same thing.”

Alex took another bite of the protein bar. Once he’d swallowed, he said: “My next mission is to Kuwait in 1992, to give an updated target briefing.”

“I hate that you were on a military base in Kuwait when you were 2, but go on.”

Alex told him the plan. 

As expected, Kyle did not like it.

\--

Alex opened his eyes into the cool dark of a VIP tent at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, 23 miles from the Iraqi border. “VIP” was all a matter of perspective, he’d learned. There was no electricity, water, heat, or food; but there were fewer people than the regular tents housed. Privacy was the highest barterable good in an active war zone--other than beer, but since they were in a Muslim country, beer was light on the ground. He couldn’t see any adult bodies in the dozen bunks at this time of night, but he could hear the sound of a child sniffling.

He stood up, brushing the dust off of his 1992-era Air Force fatigues and headed towards the sound. 

Even at this age, he’d learned not to cry out loud.

“Hey, Alex?”

The sniffling stopped, and the blankets of one of the beds in the back gave a rustle before falling still, a little hand tucking the blacket more tightly around a small body.

“Daddy?”

Alex’s heart clenched and he felt a little nauseous, but he kept walking, swinging his backpack in front of him to unzip. “No, I’m your Mommy’s friend,” he said. “She sent me to bring you something.”

In the last four days, he’d thought long and hard about what he could bring to himself, as a toddler, that would make him calm enough for the rest of the plan to work. Something that wouldn’t leave any time-warping evidence behind. He’d settled on steamed blue corn and posoles in a little purple thermos Kyle had helped to make. It was packed it next to his entire life’s timeline that Michael had asked for, _if I even get to see him again if this works._

“She asked me to bring you these,” he said, holding out the still steaming veggies. 

The toddler sat-up, face lopsided with sleepiness, hair shaved tight to his head. Alex remembered being terrified of the screaming, hard-edged electric razors they’d used on him until he was old enough to cut his own hair.

“Can I sit?”

The toddler nodded, making grabby-hands for the purple container. Alex could feel the same hunger in his belly; he’d figured out how to get to the mess halls on his own pretty young, but there had been a good few years he hadn’t been able to figure it out and had just gone hungry when he was forgotten.

Alex produced a child-sized spoon and watched the toddler make a big, happy bite, mess accumulating in the blankets. 

Alex smiled: “Good?”

The kiddo nodded, continuing to wolf down the food. Alex brought out his water bottle, the one with the little tin cup that served as a lid. He poured some water and handed it over. He drank, getting more than a little of it on his red shirt.

“Is Mommy here?” He asked between bites, voice so young and hopeful Alex’s heart panged.

“No, she’s still back home in New Mexico.”

“Oh.” The chewing slowed, the spoon drooping down to the side.

“Is there anything else you need?” Alex asked, hearing the desperation in his own voice.

The little guy frowned, scrubbing his stubbled hair with his fist. He shivered: “I’m cold.”

Alex looked around at the other beds: “I can get another blanket --”

Then he felt a light pressure on his arm. The toddler had extended his arms, reaching for Alex. He knew, with a suddenness that he couldn’t explain, exactly what he wanted; he’d wanted it every night for years. The wanting had long since settled into his bones, rarely rising to the surface anymore. But it was still fresh for this child.

Alex reached over, lifting him into his lap, tucking the blankets around him. His skin was a little cold, and Alex wrapped his arms around him, settling the purple food container on the ground beside them.

“Song?” He heard him mumble.

“Sure,” he said, voice catching, “Donna donna?”

A little sleepy nod against his uniformed chest.

He hummed the first line, then began to sing in a soft voice, too quiet to be heard outside of the tend as the desert winds blew against the oiled canvas:

> _“On a wagon bound for market_ _  
> __there's a calf with a mournful eye_ _  
> __high above him there's a swallow_ _  
> __w_ _inging swiftly through the sky”_

He kept singing, looping through the verses in order, out of order, long after the child in his arms was safely asleep. He found himself rocking to the off-beat rhythm he remembered his mother’s old protest friends playing on the guitar, sitting on red embroidered pillows on the floor of her carpet-piled living room.

He kept singing as he heard heavy booted footsteps approaching down the long corridor of tents.

> _“Calves are easily bound and slaughtered_ _  
> __never knowing the reason why_ _  
> __but whoever treasures freedom_ _  
> __l_ _ike the swallow has learned to fly”_

Alex pulled his service weapon out, pointing it at the tent flap, hand and arm steady. When his father stepped through the door, Alex held a finger up to his lips.

“He’s sleeping.”

The freshly-minted Colonel had his gun in his hand, finger barely on the trigger guard; not pointed, but the idea that the Colonel would even _consider_ discharging a weapon near his child filled Alex with a fresh flash of rage he hadn’t even known he could feel for himself anymore.

He whispered: “Heyya Pop. Lower your weapon.”

“You’re not my son.”

Alex gave a quiet, harsh chuckle. “Not the first time you’ll say that, or probably the last. But US Air Force Captain Alexander Manes, at your service,” he paused. “Or, well, you’ll be at mine.”

“If you’re telling the truth, this is a violation of Time Agency protocol.” The man had lowered his tone to match Alex’s.

Alex shrugged, whispering: “So’s belting your agents for not meeting mission goals; or, it would be, if you hadn’t re-written to protocol to allow for corporal punishment.” He took a breath. “This is going to take a minute, you should sit.”

“If you’re really Alexander, you’ll know something about me no one else would.”

Alex’s voice was flat, hard, but still low when he said: “You still tell your sons to ‘pick out a switch’ before you belt them, even if there’s no cherry trees around, because it’s how your father used to say it to you. It just means ‘choose the implement of your own punishment,’ so we feel guilty when it hurts. Like if we’d chosen better, it wouldn’t hurt so much.” His gun hand was steady. “Sit. Down.”

The Colonel sat on the bed, the creak of it the loudest thing in the tent. His weapon was at his side, safety on but unholstered. Alex lowered his arm, keeping the gun pointing at the Colonel, and adjusted the sleeping toddler in his lap.

“O’Hannity would never authorize this mission.” The Colonel growled.

“You think O’Hannity would still be in charge of the Time Agency in a time when your youngest son would be approaching 30?” Alex scoffed, “Shocking as it is, Dad, things change.”

The Colonel’s lips twisted into a sneer, whispering: “So you, what, came here to cuddle yourself? Fucking weakling.”

Alex shook his head: “We’re not here to discuss your parenting. Or, in a way, we are.” He took a breath. “I’ll be taking little Alex with me.” He watched, eyes hard, hoping to see -- something. Some flash or grief or anxiety or compassion or fear; but there was nothing. Nothing but steely-eyed unforgiveness, a rotted-out heart shining through blue eyes.

Alex continued, looking down at the child in his arms: “I can take him back with me, and he’ll have a good life. Grow-up loved and wanted, cared for, not used or manipulated.” The Colonel didn’t react.

Alex pushed forward, trying to make the threat as clear as physically possible: “When it’s discovered he’s missing, you’ll lose your commission, which was contingent on my existence. You’ll lose your travel privileges and status. You may get drummed out entirely, for losing such a key asset.” He took a breath. “I’ll do it. I _want_ to do it.”

“You would have done it if you weren't trying to get something, make one of you and your Mother's ridiculous deals.” The viscosity of the Colonel’s hatred made Alex want to choke. But he thought about Michael’s face, about getting people free, and he held on, hands soft on the sleeping child in his arms.

“You’re right, I’m here for a deal. I’ll let you keep me. Raise me as you see fit. You get a storied career, rise to running the Time Agency yourself with over 150 of my successful missions to claim credit for, the brass surrounding you with praise -- _if_ ,” and he paused, long enough for that vision to crystallize in Jesse Manes’ head. And there it was, the first emotion he’d seen from him was hovering in his eyes. Not protectiveness or love or worry -- but greed. Alex felt something, some bubble of hope he hadn’t even known he’d possessed, popping. He felt the emptiness of it in his chest, his arms like wood around the toddler softly snoozing between them.

“ _If_ ,” he repeated, “you empty Caulfield. Provide every one of the imprisoned aliens with a one-time payment of a million US dollars and free transportation to the location of their choosing.” Alex pulled out a blue folder, full of details he’d spent the past four days researching, careful to move the toddler as little as possible. “Here are the accounts that, as-of 1992, you had access to with ten times those amounts. I know you know how to cover this kind of transaction and the Caulfield research hasn’t provided anything new in half a decade. You will give the aliens the choice of 3 good locations, minimum, for them to _choose_. And you won’t seek to acquire any aliens who may crash or otherwise appear after today, but will direct them to the survivors for _them_ to manage. This will make no changes to the efficacy of the Time Agency, will end-up saving the US Air Force at least $150 million dollars in recovered program costs for not having to house, feed, staff, and torture geriatric aliens; it’s a good cost-cutting plan even if you don’t give a damn about the lives involved.” Alex’s tone was flat, hard; but still so, so quiet, just barely audible over the tent-fluttering desert wind. “Think of it like Reagan emptying the mental health hospitals; but you’re actually going to do it right.”

He laid the blue folder on the bunk beside him, careful not to wake the toddler tucked against his chest.

“Everything you need to do it is here.”

“And then you’ll leave.”

“After 23 hours.” Alex’s smile was all sharp teeth: “I figure you need some free childcare to get this all handled before I go back to my own time.”

“That’s a lot of trust you’re placing in me, that I’ll follow through.” The Colonel snapped: “I thought I taught you better than that.”

Alex closed his eyes for a brief moment -- and forced them open when he heard his father shift. Alex’s gun was up, pressed to the man’s forehead, catching him as he leaned forward to lunge across the space between their bunks.

There are some sounds that can be heard even over the loudest of winds. The slide of Alex’d finger from outside the trigger guard to gently resting on the trigger was one of them. He kept contact with his father’s frigid blue eyes. “The thing about time travel is,” he said, voice soft, pressing the cold, well-oiled metal against his father’s forehead, “Is I can only travel on my own timeline. So between my 18th birthday and today, I will be within a few dozen yards of you at the beginning of every mission I go on. That’s 150 chances to kill you. 150 chances to stop what you’ll do to me growing up.”

The Colonel gasped: “You -- you won’t know. You won’t know about this deal until you make it. 26 years that I’ll know and you won’t.”

Alex nodded, arm holding steady, finger just millimeters away from tapping the trigger and taking this man out of his life forever. “I have a letter drafted for the attorney the Time Agency uses. They’ll send it to me, reveal the entirety of this deal, if they do not receive yearly notices from the freed aliens that they remain free.” His smile could have cut glass. “If you break your deal, I’ll know. You taught me well.”

The Colonel held his eyes for one more long, searching second. Then he leaned back, putting his hands palm-up in his lap.

“Fine. I’ll do it.” He paused: “You’re just going to sit there with that baby for 23 hours?” He said, derision dripping from every word as he tried to regain control. Alex slipped his finger alongside the trigger guard, rolling his shoulder at the ache of holding it out, but keeping the sight clearly on the Colonel’s head.

The child in his arms wriggled a little in his sleep. Alex held him a little closer and he soothed him. He murmured: “Caring for children is a privilege, Colonel.”

“I raised you to be strong. Everything I did, I did for your future. To make you a real Manes man.”

Alex squinted at him, suddenly out of energy for this conversation: “To quote a teenaged friend of mine: ‘yikes.’” He gestured with his head towards the blue folder. “You can take that. Go read it in the mess hall; sleep somewhere else. This tent is taken until tomorrow.”

“You can’t protect him forever.” 

Alex looked down; his toddler self had snuck a thumb into his mouth. Alex remembered his father putting lemon juice on his fingers to make him stop it. “No,” he said. “I can’t.” 

He held him closer. “But I can protect him for today. Think about why anyone should have to protect your son from you.” He waved the end of his gun towards the tent flap. “Get gone, Dad.”

The Colonel stood, tall body unfolding slowly as he tried to loom over them. Alex watched him over his service weapon.

Their most important communication had never involved words. Body talk was the Colonel’s native language. To speak it as fluently as he’d been trained to, Alex would need to put down the child.

But he was tired of speaking his father’s language for him. Alex was going to use his own tongue and let the man try, for once in his life, to understand.

“I deserved better than you. I still do.”

Before he could say anything in response, Alex flicked the gun towards the door again.

The Colonel went.

Once his boots had faded into the soft sounds of the Kuwaiti night, Alex heard a sleepy voice come from inside the bundle of blankets in his arms, muffled by a stray thumb. “Daddy’s gone?”

“Yeah, Daddy’s gone.” Alex said. “You want to sleep in the bed?”

A little head shake.

“You want to stay with me until morning? Then we can get breakfast and have some fun.”

A little nod.

Alex holstered his sidearm, lifted the little boy up, holding him tight against his chest as he moved to the top of the bed. He settled back on top of the blankets, tucking the kiddo between his arm and his chest, keeping him well-wrapped in the blankets. He wiggled until his head was on the dip of Alex’s shoulder, right under his collarbone.

“Song?” he mumbled.

“Sure,” Alex said. He went back to the lullaby his mother and her friends had sung him, but left out the verses, just sticking to the chorus:

> _“How the winds are laughing_  
>  _they laugh with all the their might_ _  
> __laugh and laugh the whole day through_  
>  _and half the summer's night”_

\--

Alex spent the next day with the toddler. Together they went to the mess hall, experimenting with foods that weren’t white or yellow. They found some cardboard boxes and brought them back to the VIP tent to build a fort. It got hot enough Alex took his fatigue shirt off and tied it around his waist, staying in his shirtsleeves. Alex held the toddler when he took a mid-morning nap; jetlag was hard on anyone, but little kids couldn’t plan around it or understand it. Alex got his actual mission accomplished with the child in his arms, finding the radar technician the briefing said was most likely to be able to update the targeting information and mailing the letter to the Time Agency's attorney.

The little boy had a tantrum around dinnertime as the sun set yellow and gold in the west. But Alex just carried him through camp, ignoring the glowers and occasionally sympathetic glances of the men there. He let the kiddo work through it, using the same soft, soothing voice he had used when Michael was hurt and scared. He didn’t know where he’d learned that voice, but it felt -- right. It felt natural. Like there was something in him that knew how to treat a child, even when he’d never seen it done right. It soothed something inside of himself, to see he could handle a day with a child, that the little boy seemed calmer, seemed to sleep better as he put him to bed that night. 

That didn’t save Alex from the questions: “I’m heading out overnight, so we’re not going to see each other again for a long while.”

“Why?”

“I have a flight to catch home.”

“Why?”

“I want to go home.”

“Why?”

“I have a friend I’m hoping I get to see first, and I want to make sure he’s alright.”

“Why?”

Alex closed his eyes for a moment, keeping his face soft. “Because I just did something that will probably change his life. And he said it was ok, but -- you never really know how these things will go.”

“Why?”

Alex smiled: “Because he’s like you -- really, really smart, kind, and hardworking. And I want him to have a good life.”

“Why?”

“Because you both deserve to.”


	15. This bottle of Stephen's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's queerphobic language in this chapter, but it is swiftly and violently dealt with.

Alex opened his eyes in a grimy alley to the sound of a boot hitting a soft body. He was up and running before the timestream’s glowing light faded from the device in his chest, eyes searching the darkness.

There, behind the blue dumpster, three skinheads standing over a teenager -- a flash of curls on the ground, a shouted: “Fuck you!”

Alex was on the attackers a second later, an elbow slamming one of the adult men in the face. Like with Mr Ridley, the blow wasn’t as solid as it should have been, but Alex could feel the thrum of rage hot under his skin and followed-up with a repeated knee to the groin, then finished it by kneeing the bent-over man in the nose hard enough to burst it across his pale face. He fell to the ground, palm going to stem the blood; on the back of his hand was a shield with black, white, and red stripes. _Fucking Nazis_.

“Hey! My ghost!” Slurred a loud, drunk voice from the ground. Alex resisted the urge to growl because he was insanely glad that Michael _remembered_ him; but he hadn’t been expecting to drop down into the middle of a brawl, a bruised teenager at his feet, after the day he’d just had. 

Alex turned to the next skinhead, who’s wide blue eyes were searching the area around Alex, eyes sliding off of him.

“My ghost is gonna fuck you up!” Michael crowed and Alex was going to have to have a serious talk with him about how to fight. _Gloat after you win_. _If ever._

Alex looked at the skinhead, to see if seeing his friend get his ass kicked by an invisible force made him run. No dice: “Your fucking _what_ you fucking _faggot --”_

Alex broke his nose with a roundhouse punch, slamming his face into the black brick of the alleyway wall as Michael cheered drunkenly.

Alex’s voice was breathy and a little tired when he said: “Michael, can you tell them to run? They can’t hear me.”

“Run, motherfuckers! _Run!_ My ghost’s gonna get you!”

Alex rolled his eyes; the third bruiser was turning to where Michael lay. The man had 88 on his neck and a Jerusalem crusader cross on his biceps; Alex stomped his knee in and leaned down to pick up Michael in the same motion before the man had finished falling.

“You _came_ ,” he said, all bloody-teethed smiles. 

“Can you walk?” Alex asked, wanting to pat him down for injuries but wanting to get him _out of here_ faster. The alley was a deadend with a 16 foot padlocked gate across the end. Only one of the buildings that surrounded it had a door; it was cracked open and had a white pegasus stenciled on the navy blue paint; there were sparkles. Alex could climb the fence if he had to, but it wouldn’t be easy to get Michael over it if he was hurt.

Michael tried to rest his weight on his own two feet and hissed. “Just a cracked rib; no biggie. You’ve got your medspray?”

"You remember the medspray?” Alex asked, heart falling. If this Michael had still met Alex at 8, had to be healed by Mr Ridley’s cruelty, his mother must still be in Caulfield; _it didn’t work._

One of the skinheads began to work his way to his feet. Alex hauled Michael through the door, the sound of a club assaulting his ears as he worked his way past the bathroom and onto the dance floor. Michael found his feet and pushed ahead, and grabbing Alex’s wrist, dragging him deeper into the club.

It was dark and thick with bodies heaving and writhing to the thick techno beats. Alex slipped his backpack off and held it to his chest; he didn’t need someone getting a hold of his complete timeline, even if they’d have no idea what it meant. There were rainbow streamers and videos of men in neon speedos dancing. There was a chain link fence down the middle, dividing the dance floor. It was hard to tell, but it looked like the crowd on this side of the fence was younger and that closer to the bar over 21. The lights were flashing bright, UV lighting up every white undershirt in the place. Alex’s eyes found the door and started to try to herd Michael towards it.

Michael turned around, grinning at Alex and shouted: “Let’s dance!”

Alex shook his head, pointing towards the door; he still had blood on his knuckles. Michael caught his arm, turning it over, the happy alien tattoo flashing in the UV light: “Nice tat!” he shouted over the music.

“Door, Michael!” Alex shouted back. 

Michael rolled his eyes, a slight bruise coming up across his temple. Alex tried to make his voice both kind and hearable over the racket: “Please, Michael.”

“Fine,” Michael huffed with long-suffering teenaged patience. But he headed towards the exit. “I need to tell Claire and Ashely I’m leaving though, one second!”

He grabbed Alex’s wrist and dragged him towards the exit where two young women in their early 20s were dancing close to the wall. Michael dove in between them, shouting something about “tell the bouncer there’s skinheads in the alley,” and “I’m going home!” They eyed Alex but shrugged, letting Michael go with big sloppy drunken hugs.

Alex didn’t try to talk until they got outside, the noise of the downtown Pittsburgh street was nothing compared with the crush and cacophony of the club. He checked his watch: 710 seconds.

“I need to get you home,” Alex said, looking for a car he could hotwire and get Michael back to his dorm room, slipping his backpack back over his shoulder.

“This way,” Michael said, grabbing Alex’s elbow and dragging him down Liberty Ave, yellow streetlamps highlighting signs for a Planned Parenthood, a Cartoon Museum, and a porn shop. His voice was sounding steadier even as his breathing hitched from hurt. “I got a sublet around the corner for the summer. It’s July, 2006.” He glanced at Alex’s watch, 680 seconds: “We’ve got time, I can show you.”

“Why are you drinking, Michael?” Alex asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral as he let the teenager drag him down the sidewalk. 

Michael’s shoulders slumped a little. “This is the week I’d normally get to see my Mom in Libya, but she had to cancel because she wants me to focus on my studies here. I was just blowing off some steam with my labmates.”

“Your -- your Mom?” Alex said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. He hitched a breath. “It worked?”

There was a twinkle in Michael’s eye, the alcohol losing some of its power in the summer air. “Just wait until I tell you -- even better, I’ll show you --” He tugged on Alex’s wrist, pulling him around a corner to a big industrial door, fumbling a set of keys out of his ripped-knee jeans.

“Your Mom’s letting you live alone?” Alex said, trying to process that _it worked_. _But the medspray?_

Michael grinned: “Jared and Marie did; we did a test last summer for a 3-week intensive in Boston and it went fine, so I get to live on my own out here.” He hustled Alex into an antique gated elevator, Michael waving his hand to close and lock the gate once they were out of view of the street. The elevator rose faster than Alex would have expected. Michael waved his hands again and through the delicately wrought black steel of the elevator’s roof, Alex saw a warm yellow light begin to filter down.

The industrial workspace had a dozen toddler-sized lightbulbs hanging from carefully anchored wires, tables made from doors spread across the room with a wide range of electronics and other, more alien-looking, projects glowing on them. One wall was full of filing cabinets, looking dusty and disused. There was a full kitchen done along the other wall, all stainless-steel metal cabinets and what looked like a Bunsen burner set beside the gas stove. There were a series of bookcases anchored together at the end of the room, dividing off a private living area with a massive floor-to-ceiling paned window looking out across an alley to a windowless warehouse building, enough to let the blue city starlight through but remain unseen. One of the black bookcases had the alien lamp on top of it, spreading a gentle light across the bedroom area. 

Alex’s first words were: “Wow, Michael.”

Michael’s grin could have put the sun to shame: “You haven’t seen the best part.”

He waved his hand and a dozen different glowing thumb-sized lumps of what looked like the same alien material that made up the device in Alex’s chest flew across the loft, hovering in a pinwheel in the air between them.

Alex frowned -- “Where did you --” then he held up his hand. “No, wait. You’re injured. Hop up on the kitchen counter and I’ll make sure you’re healed. You can’t be a mad alien scientist with a perforated lung.”

Michael let the spiral of devices settle into a crop circle on the ground, rolling his eyes. But he hopped onto the counter with a grimace, kicking his heels against the metal cabinets.

“Just a cracked rib?” Alex confirmed. 

Michael paused, then in a slightly less manic tone: “They got me in the ribs, chest, head; I went down on the first punch, tried to protect my head.”

Alex clenched his jaw: “I should have broken their _fucking_ legs.” He reached into his bag, pulling out his medspray.

Michael nodded: “Fucking skinheads, they hop the fence to bother people at Pegasus -- it’s the only queer club in Pittsburgh that lets in people 18-21. I was just in the alley taking a breather; it’s a little bit of a lot in there.”

Alex’s tone was severe: “You’re 16. You could get their liquor license pulled. Where do you want healed first?”

Michael hiked up his red shirt just over his ribs and Alex sprayed the medspray over it. Then Michael took a full breath and sighed out in relief.

“Thanks. And my fake is really, really good. No danger there.” He gestured to the side of his face. “They sucker-punched me when I went out the door.” He closed his eyes and Alex waved the medspray across it, watching to make sure the skin healed entirely.

“The chest -- was it a kick or a stomp?” Alex asked, voice neutral.

Michael wrinkled his nose: “A kick. But we can’t use the medspray there.”

“Why not?”

“I can show you.” Michael said, waving his hand at one of the tables. An Altoid box flew through the air, landing in Michael’s palm solidly. He presented it to Alex with a flourish.

“I don’t need an Altoid,” Alex said, completely lost, “I’m not the one underaged drinking.”

Michael jiggled his hand, something soft moving against the tin: “Look inside.”

Alex picked it up by the sides, glancing at Michael where he was nearly vibrating with anticipation, and opened the red and white box.

Inside was a huddle of black fabric, wrapped around one of the devices Michael had been showing him. Alex frowned, picking it up.

It was his mask. From the first time he’d met Michael in Mr Ridley’s house.

He looked at him, feeling confusion blooming across his face. “I don’t understand.”

Michael hopped off the counter, sweeping to the middle of the room, steps a little unsteady.

“Ok,” he started, eyes bright. “So, the last time you saw me was in the Morewood Gardens -- the common room?” Alex nodded. Michael continued: “So, you said you were going to go back to save my Mom. And I figured, guessed really, that my timeline progresses in some kind of variable proportionality to yours. Like, roughly 1 day for you to every 3 to 6 months for me. That’s why I wanted your timeline, to get a better angle on that.” Alex nodded, slinging his backpack in front of himself, pulling out the folder with his timeline and setting it on the kitchen counter. 

“So I don’t forget,” he waved for Michael to continue.

“Thanks. I knew you’d come through,” Michael said with a warm smile. “So even without that, I knew I had at least six months. Six months before I’d forget you.”

“Six months to do _what_ Michael? I don’t get what you’re trying to --”

“Ok, I’m -- fuck, of all the nights for you to come it had to be the one I got sorry-for-myself drunk.” He paused, pressing his fingers over his eyelids, taking a deep breath. Another. Then another. “Let’s start again. You asked me if you could go back into my past to rescue my mother from Caulfield. I knew that, if you did that, my entire timeline might change. And you asked me first, because 6 years ago, you promised a sobbing kid sitting on a split-rail fence at the Foster Ranch that you wouldn’t change his past. I know you keep your promises.” Alex felt something warm in his chest at Michael’s words, but he tried to focus on what he was saying: “And I also knew that I didn’t want to forget you. So I knew I had 6 months to invent a way to keep myself from forgetting that timeline, the one where we first met.” 

Alex started to ask a question but Michael held up his hand and Alex held his peace. Michael continued: “I’d already been working on it -- thinking about it, doodling -- pretty much since we met. I _knew_ the technology had to be alien, even before Jared and Marie told me about the Time Agency. The colors of the lights, the shape of the technology -- it’s _ours._ Made from our _DNA._ So I had some theories and ideas. And I didn’t have time to make a whole apparatus, a whole way to _travel_ in time.”

“Yeah, 6 months is a bit of a tight timeline for a 15 year old undergrad to figure that all out on his own. Even a genius one.” 

Michael flushed at the compliment, but kept going. “But I didn’t need to _travel_ in time -- I just needed to harness my own natural, species-standard time awareness, and amp it up enough that I would be able to remember both timelines -- or, any of them, both moving forward or that split off in my past.”

“In your past -- Michael, that’s not how this works. You can’t just retroactively remember prior timelines that happened before you were fully time aware. You become time aware, and then you start remembering. Otherwise, I would know about missions before I was born.” The prospect was overwhelming -- 150 timelines was enough to keep track of any day, and most agents only had a third that number of missions in their entire careers.

Michael nodded slowly, “Not usually. But I had a connection to someone who _did_ remember them. Who was also time aware.” He glanced down meaningfully at the Altoid box.

Alex looked at him blankly.

Michael burst out: “I stole your DNA from your mask, the one you left the first time we met, and hooked my time awareness into yours. Sorry. Not sorry. Anyway. The device in the box keeps the mask from disappearing when I get a new timeline to remember; it ensures it persists across all timestreams. I needed it to, because it’s my only connection to your DNA. So I can remember all of the timelines you remember.” He hurried to add. “Not your memories, of course. Just, like --” he waved. “Like, those filing cabinets,” he gestured to the wall. “Every timeline is like one of those. It might be empty, if I don’t know anything about it. But I know it’s there, I know the date it diverged from the others. But it might also be full, if I lived it, or even part of it. So you,” and he waved to Alex, “You have over 150 filing cabinets, 150 different branches of the same massive timestream, all of the timelines you’ve lived and changed. I’ve got 8,” and he held up two fingers. Then he squinted at them, holding up a third finger. “After this visit, now 9.”

Alex frowned. “But -- how’d you do that? And what are the 9 timelines?”

“The _how_ is -- I invented a device that’s like yours, that’s in my chest just like yours. Marie was a surgeon back home, and after I told her what you were planning to do with Caulfield, she agreed to help me remember you. So I made it, she implanted it in my chest,” and he pulled down the loose collar of his t-shirt, showing Alex the slight bump on his breastbone, about the size of a thumb; glowing with the same light that Alex had. “Then a few weeks ago, when the change must have happened in the way your timeline overlaps with mine, suddenly, I remembered 8 timelines. One for each visit you made to me, each time you changed my life, plus one for a world where you never came. After this visit, I'll have 9.” 

He held up a long finger. “For example, one is the one you know. I was found at 7, wandering naked in the desert. I went through a year of shitty foster care, and one day, a ghost came to my house and saved me. He found me a home, first with his mother, then with my own people. He helped me when I was scared, helped me find my family, paid for my college. That’s the timeline I was living, the one I had in my head before your last mission.” 

He held up another finger. “In the other timeline, everything’s the same, except when you helped me get to Marie and Jared, they told me my Mom was alive, but in a country I could only visit once a year. She’s,” and he paused, love and pain and pride and worry passing across his face, “She’s given up so much, for me, for Max and Isobel. Once your Mom made sure Jared and Marie found me and Max and Isobel, they contacted the elders in Libya, let them know. They didn’t come to get us early, get us out of the pods early -- there was so much chaos in those first years. A lot of leaders, a lot of trauma, a lot of intensity as people tried to build a new society out in the desert. They helped people get rid of Qaddafi within 6 months of arriving, but have stayed quiet since then. They knew we were safe and wanted to keep us that way, in case the Colonel went back on his word. When we were found, they asked that we stay in Roswell, stay in the lives we’d been building there. They have plans, but they don’t talk to me much about them.” He scuffed his foot. “They think I’m too young to know about it all yet. But they’re there, and once a year, I get to see them.” He looked down. “But not this year. Mom wanted me to focus on my studies, on my projects.” He waved to himself, the torn and dirty clothes from the fight. “Thus, the underaged drinking.”

Alex paused, taking it in. “So when I go back, I’m going to learn there’s no Caulfield anymore. But Jared and Marie still live on the Mescalero reservation?”

Michael nodded, giving half a smile. “They like it there. They like getting to see your Mom and being able to keep an eye on the Time Agency for the elders from a distance is really beneficial for the whole community.”

Alex nodded. “Do you know -- did the Colonel give them a choice? Of where to go?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Oh, yeah. That was a cause of a lot of drama in the early days, deciding that. He insisted it be southern Libya, Democratic Republic of Congo, or New Zealand.” He paused. “We’ve never figured out why those three.”

Alex narrowed his eyes: “They’re all places I can’t get to, from my timeline, within a 24 hour mission window.” He flipped open his timeline, turning to the map of every place he’d been, dates and hours spent there, routes in and out.

Michael cocked his head: “What?”

“Not to be self-centered, but I just finished spending 24 hours avoiding the Colonel on an Air Force Base the size of a postage stamp and I can tell you he was royally pissed at my interference in his plans. If he could do anything to keep me from connecting with the elders, building relationships with the people who I’d helped free, he’d do it. Each of those countries are places that are on my no-visit list, because there’s no logistical way to get me to them, from anyplace in my timeline.”

“Oh,” Michael said, looking at the map. “I’d never considered it would be a grudge.”

Alex’s smile was bleak: “Then you, thank God, have not spent any time with the Colonel.”

“You’re -- are you ok? Having spent that much time with him, did he --” Michael didn’t seem to know how to phrase it.

Alex patted his shoulder. “I can take care of myself, Michael. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Michael shook his head: “Fat chance of that. Do you remember anything different, from your new timeline after this mission?”

Alex closed his eyes, thinking back. He would expect to see _something_ , some strangeness, some references he didn’t get, didn’t quite understand -- but there was nothing.

“Maybe,” Alex paused, “Maybe how it was, growing up, he did the same things for a different reason. On my first pass through, he, uh, did what he did to keep me in line, to raise me a perfect Time Agent. But this pass through, it might,” he thought about it for a long moment, “I think maybe he was trying to make sure that, when the time came, I wouldn’t be in a position to even think of requesting Caulfield be closed. That when he finally sent me to Kuwait, I would be too, uh,” he didn’t know how to describe it. He knew Kyle’s words for it, but he hadn’t decided if they were his yet. “He would have me under enough control that I would just do the Kuwait mission I was assigned and then spend the next 23 hours catching up on sleep.”

“Sleep?”

“Uh,” Alex wasn’t sure how much to share, “Up until about 3 weeks ago, my brother was,” he paused again, “I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. Ever. I was, always on the brink of exhaustion. Following orders the best I could, but not able to -- you know.”

“Think for yourself?”

“Yeah,” Alex said softly. _It sounded so dire putting it that way._ He pasted on a smile: “But a friend’s been letting me crash with him, I think you’d like him.” Alex’s face grew stern, “Though he wouldn’t approve of your underaged drinking. It’s dangerous and you should wait until you’re older.”

“Oh my God, Alex! Fine.” Michael’s voice was theatrically put-upon, but Alex could see something in him settling, that Alex wasn’t freaked out by all of his genius inventions. That they were still friends. “I invent a new way of interacting with the timestream, and all you care about is me getting hammered on Jagerbombs.”

The look of disgust on Alex’s face was entirely unfeigned. “That’s -- that’s a horrible drink, Michael. When you’re legal, you’re going to learn about drinking actual, good alcohol.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Michael said, grinning.

Alex handed the Altoid box back, voice growing serious: “And I _am_ impressed, Michael. Really, really impressed. This is -- incredible. Genius. But more than smarts, it shows how hard you work, how much you care, and how brave you are. Those are all things I’ve known about you your whole life, that Marie and Jared and I’m sure your Mom and Isobel and Max know about you. And I fuss at you about the alcohol and stuff not because I don’t want you to blow off steam, but because,” he paused, not wanting to scare him, but wanting to be real for a moment, “Because it’s dangerous. You’re young in a city you’re not from, no safety net in this state. Friends are good, but they’re young too. You’re queer in a time when there are very few protections. And, hey, you’re an alien from outer space.”

Michael cracked a grin, eyes serious on Alex’s. Listening.

Alex continued: “I want you to keep being brave and kind and hardworking. But I also want you to be safe. Like the first promise we made, that I would try to connect you with your family if you tried to call the social worker. It’s about -- “ he took a breath, “living long enough to get to make the change you want to see in the world. I saw, growing up, I saw so many brilliant young men’s lives cut short. By bombs, by cars, by motorcycles, yes. But also by being _young_. _Young_ and thinking they were immortal. And that’s a good feeling, _the best feeling_ , sometimes. But it’s one that fades and I want you to live long enough to feel it fade. I want you to survive long enough to remake the entire world in your image, Michael. Because the world would be so much better if it was more like how you wish it was.”

Michael’s eyes were huge by the end of Alex’s speech: “Oh,” he said, twisting his lips. “Oh. Ok. That’s -- that’s a better reason than I thought you had.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? I’m glad to see even time wizards can be surprised sometimes.”

Michael grinned.

Then Alex’s watch started counting down from 10, beeping the seconds.

Alex couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He stumbled backwards, back slamming against the filing cabinets, a puff of dust bursting around him. Alex tried to open his mouth, tried to raise his hand to wave goodbye, but he couldn’t move, the timestream slipping around him, yanking him backwards. The last thing he heard was:

“Stay safe too, Alex!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At one point after college, I spent an evening through through the Anti-Defamation League's entire database of hate symbols, so if I saw someone with an 88 tattoo or a "14 Words" tattoo, I would know what flavor of evil they were. You can check it out here: https://www.adl.org/hate-symbols
> 
> I would love to know -- are there tags that folks think this should have? Both trigger warnings and general. Like, I think "slowburn" is probably appropriate at this point :).


	16. this way is a water slide

“So, Michael went to a queer club, got queerbashed, you saved him, and it turns out he’s even more of a genius than we thought?”

“And he needs to stop drinking.” Alex had landed in the time chamber at close to 2am; he and Kyle had driven home and collapsed onto the couch, Kyle with a mug of ice cream and Alex with a bag of chips and the green chili Kyle had made while they were cooking the posoles the day before.

Kyle spoke around his spoon: “He’s a 16 year old boy with an apartment; you’re lucky jagerbombs are the worst thing he’s doing.”

“Michael’s a good kid.”

“Michael’s a teenager.”

“True,” Alex said, thinking about everything Michael had said and done. “He, he seems like he has a good support system. His Mom is back --”

Kyle’s voice was slow: “You said, in your last timeline, there was a place called Caulfield? A prison where the Time Agency tortured aliens? And I did a rotation there?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah,” he said, heart heavy. It had happened this way, with Flint sometimes; he’d come back from a mission, saved hundreds or dozens or just sometimes even one person, and Flint would gloss over it, because for him, they’d always been saved. Alex had grown up knowing that his work was best when it was invisible to nearly everyone. “I bartered with my father to stop it, back in 1992. I told you about it on a big trip to El Capitan a few days ago.”

“Oh, I remember the trip. We talked about how you’ve been great about protecting Michael and being a good friend to him. And you told me about a plan and I didn’t like it, but I --” Kyle frowned.

Alex leaned towards him: “You know those days when you and someone else remember a conversation totally differently? Or, something as simple as a coin toss, something that should be easy to remember the outcome?”

Kyle nodded: “Getting older sucks? Too much med school stuff in my brain? Shouldn’t have played football in high school?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” Alex said. He thought about it, and then made a decision. He rolled-up his pant-leg and began to unlatch the vacuum seal on his prosthesis; he hadn’t done it with Kyle there outside of a medical situation, but it was late, and he was tired. “So, when they tell you about time travel, they explain it like the pantlegs of time, right?”

“Yeah, it seems like a funky metaphor, but whatever.” Kyle stood up, going to grab Alex’s spare crutches from the bedroom.

Alex gave a half-smile and kept working on the prosthetic, hands sliding along the metal and plastic and silicon with a practiced ease. It had been painful, for a long time, to do this; but there was something comfortable in it now; something he knew a lot about, that he alone could control. When Kyle came back into the room and handed the crutches over, Alex said: “I haven’t talked about it with the other Time Agents -- we're rarely permitted to meet -- but I think of it more like rivers -- do you know the term ‘avulsion’”?

“Only in a medical context, but that doesn’t sound like what you’re talking about.”

Alex continued: “It’s sometimes called ‘delta switching’?”

“Not too many water physics classes in medical school.”

Alex nodded, freeing the silicon sleeve and tucked his pant leg around his stump.

“Ok,” he said, drawing the shape of a river in the air. “So, some rivers are like the Columbia, blasting into the Pacific and forming 30 ft waves where they hit the tideline, just, spitting their fury like a million, billion firehoses, right into the mouth of the deep.”

“Jesus,” Kyle said, taking another spoonful out of his cup. He’d slathered the ice cream in _honey_ and Alex had, mostly, kept his opinions about that to himself. He was happy with his chips and chili so hot it was making his eyes water.

“You know they train the Coast Guard at Cape Disappointment? They take these rescue ships out, ride them out into those massive tidal waves, let the boats flip entirely over, and they come back up in 11 seconds? They’re special boats, but being in the midst of all of that raging water, it’s --” Alex grinned. “It’s really incredible.”

Kyle shook his head. “Nope. No thank you. No near-drowning experiences for me. Hard pass. Thank you.”

Alex shrugged: “Underwater work isn’t for everybody.”

“I forget, you’ve got diving experience.”

Alex was, in fact, a master diver; but he didn’t feel the need to correct Kyle. “That’s how I started thinking about rivers, after they sent me on all of those diving missions after what happened with my leg. They figured I’d be more mobile underwater. But anyway, the entire Pacific coast is riddled with ancient underwater deltas, because rivers don’t stop depositing sediment just because they go underwater. You can look at them on Google Maps, under satellite view; it’s actually easier to see them that way than trying to look through the tree cover. Or you can look at the deltas on Mars --”

Alex pulled up his phone, tapping some search terms into the image search.

“On _Mars?_ ” Kyle asked skeptically.

Alex nodded, showing him the search results: “Once you know what a delta looks like -- a big noodly hour glass -- you can see it pretty clearly on the satellite images of Mars.” He pointed to the small streams that joined together into a big river. “Those are tributaries -- they usually trickle down the mountains, ice melt and rain water and spring water, in little creeks and streams and brooks, rills and races, rivulets and runnels. Then they form into rivers, and then rivers join other rivers, to become a great big river.” He pointed to the thick, deep line in the middle of the image.

He took a breath, Kyle watching him closely: “But the thing is, each of them carries sediment. Every creek trickles over a bed, every tributary that shoots through a canyon, it picks up dirt and stones and leaves and mush. And while the river is running fast, then all of that hurly-burly is kept in suspension, in moving stasis. It might build-up on banks when the river curves around something it can’t grind down, but just like waterfalls erode towards the head of the river, the suspended sediment doesn’t settle.”

Alex pointed towards where the deep channel of the river suddenly flared out, into a rounded fan shape, like veins in a hand or nerves in a body: “Until it does. Until it slows down and the sediment begins to fall, begins to build-up. That’s where avulsion comes in.”

Kyle’s voice was soft: “In medicine, ‘avulsion’ refers to when a body part is torn away, either by surgery or by accident.” He made a slight gesture to Alex’s stump. Alex looked down at it, carefully covered by his pant leg.

“I hadn’t heard it called that before, but it’s a similar concept,” he said, trying to regain his bearings. “With rivers, it’s when the river has built-up a lot of sediment, breaking a steady stream into several streams, all flowing in the same direction. But unlike with bodies, none of those streams are dead; they’re all living, flowing things.” He took a breath. “So, when a river begins to lay down its sediment, it spreads out, forms channels. But sometimes those channels form a lot of sediment too, so they break into other channels.”

He pointed to the broad and meandering shapes in the alluvial fan on Mars: “It _doesn’t_ just form a big, wide, shallow river. The water forms channels. Distinct paths. And sometimes those paths diverge forever,” he pointed to two that formed a nearly 90 degree angle away from each other, “And sometimes they split apart for a little bit, and then come back together,” he pointed to another stream, one that swept far away from its source and then jerked back close against it just as quickly.

He glanced over at Kyle, and kept going: “It’s like that with time. Every time I go back in time, I’m causing an avulsion. I’m forcing one creek away from the main river, everything I do there is designed to deposit enough sediment to make that change go exactly in the direction the Time Agency’s Congressional oversight committee wants it to.” He paused, thinking about how to say this. “Sometimes, people talk about the ‘butterfly effect’, like every tiny thing we do will change absolutely everything.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s true; I don’t know. But from what I’ve seen, time is like rivers.” He pointed to one of the deeper streams on the alluvial fan: “It forms into channels. Maybe if I ate red chili rather than green tonight, absolutely everything would be different tomorrow,” Kyle’s eyebrows raised up and Alex smiled, crunching down on another chip. “But probably not. Time’s sticky that way. Most choices, most decisions, they’re true and real and valid for us, but they don’t change the overall flow of things. But sometimes, they do, for a few days, and then we run out of steam and drift back into the main stream.”

“So you’re saying, when I remember an argument differently than someone else, or when I can’t remember the result of a coin flip --”

“It could be your memory going because of all of that ill-advised high school football,” Alex said with a smile, “Or it could be you’re remembering a little of a mini-journey you took away from this timestream. That you remember differently because you’re remembering where your path took you, before you came back and those two timestreams merged back together again. See, I think everyone is a _little bit_ Time Aware. Not enough to remember hundreds of different complete timestreams, but enough to experience those little differences, those little gaps. And the more time you spend in contact with time travel, the more you're more likely to notice those things, remember those things. Remember two different conversations. And those little confusions, those little lost memories, drifts of other realities across the timestream, they’re the sediment that builds up, that _keeps_ the different rivers of time apart.”

Alex looked down at his leg, voice quiet: “I’m a little jealous of you, to be honest,” he said, taking a breath. “I know, _for certain_ , that I had an entire timestream, an entire life, where I never lost my leg, or where I got back in time for them to save it rather than being trapped in that cave while the clock ran out. That’s the big kind of change, the kind of avulsion that breaks a time stream away from its source in a way it can never come back from. And I _know_ that there was a whole world where -- and I don’t know how I got there. Maybe I never got sent to Afghanistan in 1997. Maybe I succeeded and there was no 9/11. Maybe I died. Time streams can split a lot of different ways around those big avulsions, those big inflection points. But though I can’t remember any of those other ones, I _know_ they’re out there.”

He took a breath: “And it’s not that I’m not fine, because I am. I’m fine. But I think other people find comfort in knowing there’s only one way their lives could have gone, that whatever choices they made were the ones they were always going to make, the only ones they could have made. For me, I don’t know how my choices will change the world, not for certain, not for sure, but I _do_ know that for every change I make, there’s an entire world -- possibly a far better world -- where I didn’t. Or where I did something I wasn’t smart enough to think of in this timestream. Or that the Time Agency didn’t recommend because it wasn’t in line with current US foreign policy.” He shrugged his shoulders where they were feeling tense.

“So maybe it wasn’t a kindness, telling you all this. Maybe I should have kept it to myself. But --” he frowned, rubbing his leg a little. “It was -- it was incredible, realizing that Michael would remember all of the different paths. The way that I do. I realized that I had --” he bit his lip, “it can get lonely. Being the only one who remembers, who even _knows_ about entire lives, entire societies. Like, a world where Kurdistan didn’t exist--”

Kyle scoffed.

Alex kept going: “Or where there was this group called ISIS who chopped Americans’ heads off on live TV --”

Kyle made a horrified face.

“Or where Boko Haram was a group on everyone’s mind for a hot minute or the Siege of Sarajevo took 4 years or -- any of it.”

He took a breath. “And I know that’s my job, my ability, to bear it, but when Michael said he’d figured out a way to remember _with_ me, it was.” His voice was quiet. “It felt like relief. Like when you’re in the field and you’ve been alone, shooting, for what seems like hours, and you hear your mic crackle: ‘Relief is on the way.’” He looked at Kyle, trying to explain: “It’s not here yet, and I have to keep surviving without it, but, the idea that _someone other than me_ might remember all of that, and unlike the other Time Agents, might actually _talk_ to me about it, that’s -- it’s an incredible feeling. I have someone remember it exactly how I lived it, to have that shared life experience. Like, you and I, when we met Marie and Jared, to find out where Michael was, where do you remember doing it?”

“At their home on the Mescalero Reservation, we had to dig through a bunch of your Mom’s letters to find their address. They didn’t trust us, thought we were being bugged, so they gave us a clue, an address to an old storage place. The answer to the clue was ‘Michael’, which let us get the lock open.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, and I remember that too, but like, second hand. It wasn’t how _I_ lived it.”

“What happened for you? In your old timeline?”

“Jared and Marie were in Caulfield.”

“That’s -- that’s _awful_ . Those sweet old people? Marie’s a surgeon, that must have been _hell_ for her. And Jared, he loves birding. How could --” Kyle paused. “Sorry. I know it’s not your fault, but that’s, that’s horrible to think about. I don’t know how I could have worked for someplace that did something like that.”

Alex looked at him levelly: “The same way I do and did.” His stomach was roiling a little; this part, when people realized how much he was comfortable compromising, it always hurt.

“I didn’t mean --” Kyle started, but Alex raised his hand. 

“It’s ok. I get what you’re saying.”

Kyle tried to recover: “So, where’s that other Alex, the one who _lived_ that timeline with me?”

“Another stream. When I came back here, that’s an avulsion too, where the two streams diverge.”

“So when you say you’re keeping track of over 150 different timelines -- it’s not really exactly 150, is it?”

Alex shook his head: “Some multiple of that. But a lot of them are close enough to this one that it’s not like I have to think about them day-to-day. Some streams merged back together, which is where you get differing accounts of historical events. Most people’s lives are the same and there’s a kind of, emotional consistency to a lot of it. So I just keep track of that and it’s usually works. No matter the timestream, some people always find each other. Some great loves -- or great hates -- always happen, no matter what else is going on around them.” He took a breath. “That Michael figured all of that out, on his own, no Time Agency to train him, no researchers, no big government grants, nothing -- it's incredible.”

He gave a wry huff. “I'm sure he did even more brilliant stuff than he told me about, but he was too tipsy to explain it all. 1000 seconds really isn’t enough. And Michael should stop drinking.”

Kyle chuckled: “I’m betting you told him that.”

“I sure as shit did!” Alex said, turning to face Kyle with a face full of indignation. “And I’m going to _keep_ telling him that until he cools it with the drinking!”

Kyle had graduated from chuckling to full out laughing, setting his nearly-empty mug of ice cream carefully beside the couch so he wouldn’t knock it over onto the rugs. “You’re,” he gasped, “You’re such a prig about this. Didn’t you drink in high school?”

Alex folded his arms, grin beginning to rise: “I was in mostly Muslim countries when I was his age; we did other kinds of stupid things.”

“Yeah?” Kyle grinned, getting his laughter under control. “Like what?”

“Oh,” Alex said, a flush rising, “Hookah, wadi bashing with some Marines I met in Muscat, I tried qat one time in Yemen and did _not_ enjoy it. Uh, cigarettes until I started messing with my mile time, some recreational hash in Afghanistan one time with a Congresswoman I met when we were both exiled to the same basement during a bomb threat.” He shrugged. “Not much.”

“Before we get into the inherent hypocrisy of what sounds like an international drug tour, what in God’s green name is ‘wadi bashing’?”

“Not what it sounds like,” Alex said hurriedly. “It’s a thing you do with jeeps. You take them onto the dunes, or deep into the desert, someplace there’s not a lot of people. You let the air out of the tires so they’re big and fat and sag enough they don’t sink -- mostly, don’t sink -- into the sand, and then you drive up and down the wadis.” He frowned, twisting his mouth, “‘Wadi’ -- there’s not a good English equivalent. It’s like -- like where an arroyo gets flat? Or a flood plain? Basically, it’s where the water is when the water isn’t.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m sounding worse than Michael. A ‘wadi’ is where the dry riverbed is in between flash floods. It’s actually where the word ‘Guadalupe’ comes from.”

“How?” Kyle said, post-3am giggles still breaking through even as he tried to focus.

“In Spain, there was a town on a flat, dry floodplain where wolves lived. During the nearly 1000 years of Muslim rule, it was named ‘wadi’ for the floodplain and ‘lupe’, which is Latin for ‘female wolves.’ Run that all through the creative interpretations of spelling that made-up the pre-dictionary world of romance languages and you get -- “

“‘Guadalupe.’ Huh. And the Villa where Maria de Guadelupe lived in Mexico City was named for the Spanish town?” Kyle said. Alex nodded. Kyle asked slowly: “How do you know so much?”

Ales stretched his arms above his head, shoulders and back crackling with it: “Long years of no one much to talk to makes for a great reader.”

Kyle’s face fell, and Alex felt his stomach turn; he hadn’t meant to hurt his friend. He pulled a smile on: “I’m glad to have someone to talk to now, and once I’ve had some quality time with the insides of my own eyelids, I wanted to hear more about how you’re doing. You’ve got tomorrow off, are there any errands you’ve been needing to run, something I can help with too? I know I can’t repay you --”

“Alex, there’s nothing to repay, and I’d never ask you to --”

Alex talked over him: “But I want to find a way to help too.”

Kyle frowned but nodded slowly. “Mom’s been asking for help cleaning out the garage for a few weeks; she kept, like, every possible baby picture and homework assignment and wants _me_ to say goodbye to it so she can throw it all away.” He rolled his eyes fondly. “I don’t even remember most of that stuff,” he glanced at Alex, “I think for normal, human reasons, not for Time Awareness reasons.”

Alex nodded, smiling a little as he shifted his weight on his crutches. 

“Anyway, it helps to have someone in the room with no attachment to the stuff in question. If you’d like to come?”

“I’d love to help.” Alex said, smiling and glancing over at the kitchen: 4:03am blinked red on the microwave.

“Maybe a later start this morning?”

“For fucking _sure_ ,” Kyle said. “I will not be up until noon, so put that in your Time Awareness, buddy.”

Alex chuckled -- “That’s, that’s not how it works --”

“I _know_ ,” Kyle said, grinning and heading to his room. “Night, Alex!”

At the sound of the door closing, Alex said: “Night, Kyle.”

\--

Michelle greeted Alex with the skepticism he suspected she brought to any of the strays Kyle probably collected with his big heart and need to fix things. But after Alex spent a quiet hour moving boxes where she told him to, she acknowledge that: “You’ve grown up well, Alexander,” and fed him a massive plate of posoles and the last of the Christmas tamales from the freezer.

He spent the evening reading through his Connie Willis books, heart breaking for the cat in St Paul and getting ground-up with every miscommunication and betrayal.

The next day he dove into his briefing for the next mission to Sierra Leone. He found himself flipping back to the front page where the objective was written over and over again. He finally got off his made bed and used his crutches to head over to where Kyle was writing reports on the kitchen table.

He set the report in front of him: “Do you think they could have mixed my mission up with someone else’s?”

“Hmm?” Kyle said, still in the middle of typing a sentence.

“That whole trip to Freetown was weird. It was one of the last missions the Colonel brought me on, it was in 2009, so, pre-Ebola, and even there, there’s not _military_ need to be in Sierra Leone. But he insisted we go there, spend a week, we stayed in this funky hotel, he had meetings and I tried to pick-up one of the 16 different languages spoken there.”

“16?” Kyle said, typing the end of the sentence.

“Well, it’s nothing to Nigeria’s 300. Sierra Leone’s where the formerly enslaved people who fought for the crown during the American Revolution were dropped off, regardless of whether it was where they or their families were kidnapped from, so it’s a highly syncretic culture.” He smiled. “Great stews and the local creole is called Krio. It’s a cool place,” he paused, “But me going there didn’t make any sense _then_ and it doesn’t make any sense _now_.”

He flipped over the briefing, stabbing his finger at the objective: “Acquire $25,000 in diamonds from listed target and transport to embassy in Freetown.”

Kyle was finally focusing: “That doesn’t seem like your type of mission.”

“It isn’t!” Alex said, twisting his mouth. “That -- that amount of money, we don’t need to _steal_ it; or, accept stolen goods, since it doesn’t sound like I’ll need to do anything but get them handed to me by the target. We make that in _interest_ from the dividends of our 1990s-era Apple stocks. And why would we steal it from people who are working so hard and have so little money to work with in the first place?” Alex could feel his face screwing up. “It just seems cruel. And they’re not equipping me with anything more than my usual diplomacy gear -- the only reason I’ll even have a knife is because they’ve stopped trying to take it off of me. It’s just a weird set-up.”

Kyle bit his lip. “Do you want to lodge an objection?”

“A _what?_ There’s -- there’s no process for refusing orders, Kyle.”

Kyle shook his head slowly. “No, there isn’t. But we could try to make one. Only a couple of days ago, you stood up to the Colonel, and you made all of these changes. Can’t you --”

And Alex was shaking his head, flipping the folder closed. “That was -- that was about saving 72 people from even more decades of torture. That wasn’t about -- refusing regular orders, Kyle. I’m a Captain in the US Air Force. I can refuse illegal orders, and indeed must, but this is just -- this is just a shitty job. There’s lots of those. I’m sure you’ve had them too.”

“I have,” Kyle said, closing his laptop. “But there has to be something we can do.”

Alex frowned: “I don’t think there is. It’s just a weird use of government resources.”

Kyle glanced sharply at him. “How do you mean?”

Alex waved at himself. “Very expensive government resource over here. They’ve got, what, at least 20 more years good use out of me? I know I’ve done three times as many missions as most agents ever get to, but, why break that streak early?”

“Alex -- you’re not, like, a tank or a harddrive. You’re not a resource. You’re a person --”

Alex closed his eyes, Michael’s shouted words hovering in his ears: _You’re not a thing_.

Neither of them got it: “And I’m great at my job. So why use me -- why ask me to do this mission?”

Kyle glanced at the file folder. “I don’t know. But just be careful, Alex, ok?”

\--

The Colonel stood, square-shouldered and looking so much older than the last time Alex had gotten a good look at him. The Colonel hadn’t been in the room when he’d come back from Kuwait; it wasn’t unusual for him to be present at the beginnings of Alex’s missions, but it gave him a chill to see the man’s steely eyes again.

He could have sworn, right before the timestream stole his breath away, he heard him say: “Goodbye, son.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deltas on Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakes_on_Mars#Images_of_possible_deltas


	17. Like father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is some hurt/comfort. There's descriptions of violence -- let me know if you need more details! 
> 
> May 25 Update: Note if you've read this before, I goofed and made a continuity error on the first posting. I went back and fixed it. Thank you to the commenters for noticing!

Alex opened his eyes to find cat-sized deer rummaging in his pockets for treats.

The glow of the timestream was still filtering back into the device in his chest, Alex moved very, very slowly. The dik-dik batted movie star eyelashes over anime-sized eyes; if the tiny deer could purr, Alex figured it might have started just then. An antelope about the size of a collie was watching proceedings with great interest. Alex held out a hand, giving it a second to decide he wasn't here to eat some captive venison, before coming over to investigate. He remembered the Colonel had brought him here for lunch and then left immediately after, so he suspected the taxi he'd heard crunching its way onto the highway past the gated entrance held his 19-year-old self sitting in the back while his father rode shotgun.

The antelope’s fur was bristly and short, but if he remembered right from his trip here 9 years ago, she would be just as happy to snatch the toast off of his plate as eat the grasses she was supposed to.

This was the sales pitch for the Family Kingdom Resort. There were about a dozen rescued animals from across the continent here -- all herbivores. There was a leatherback turtle saved from someone’s soup and left to make it’s circular way around a fountain; Alex had never decided whether it was better for the turtle to be soup, in the fountain, or returned to a wild world it had no way of navigating. There were smaller turtles in the fountain who occasionally sunned themselves on the leatherback's spine. This was the closest thing Sierra Leone had for a zoo.

 _Still better than the zoo in Gaza where they spray-painted the donkey to make it look like a zebra_ , Alex thought, giving the dik-dik the head-scritches it clearly desired. He was tucked into some foliage beside one of the two-story blocks of rooms placed around the resort campus. It was hot enough he was starting to feel slick across his entire body, sweat liquifying the Deet-heavy bug spray he’d slathered himself in before entering the time chamber. He was dressed in American tourist clothes -- jeans, a long-sleeved linen shirt, and a light backpack.

Michael hadn’t asked him to bring him anything this time, but his safety, so he was hoping to pick-up something small for him. He pulled out his phone and took a picture of the dik-dik’s doe-eyed smile, catching it as it started to scratch its neck with one of its hind hoofs.

“You are too cute for this world,” he murmured, levering himself to standing. He looked down at the little thing as it preened beside his prosthetic ankle. “And you know it.”

He headed to the front desk. He had enough US cash for a night here and he was supposed to meet his contact in room 214 at 5pm; it looked like it was mid-afternoon. At the Time Agency, he’d insisted he be given the money in fresh, crisp bills since most countries in west Africa used Westerner-serving hotels to get their foreign exchange currency and needed it to last. He remembered, the last time he was in Abuja, watching a western oil exec trying to bully his secretary into trading pre-2013 bills with him so he could buy dinner at the bar; the woman had held steady and the man had been forced to stay sober.

The young Lebanese man at the front desk checked him in and grinned as Alex began chatting with him in French. His sky-blue shirt was unbuttoned to mid-chest and his laugh was bright. Alex’s cover was American, but the kind of folks that came through here were a multi-lingual lot. The young man’s name was Mena and he was the nephew of the resort’s owner, here for 6 months work experience before heading back home to get his Foreign Policy masters at the American University in Beirut. 

As Alex was finishing signing for his room, two big stone faced men came in, speaking German in thick Belgian accents. 

Mena glanced at them and asked Alex if he spoke Arabic. 

“Yep,” he answered in the same language with a smile.

Mena’s face dropped to a conspiratorial glare: “You know there’s 3 flights a week from Brussels? One stop in Liberia, one stop here, then straight back north?”

“Yeah?” Alex asked.

“Why do they need to be able to bring nearly a thousand people, almost all men like these two lovies, here and back a week? While you’re here, see if you can find an Belgian waffle restaurants in Freetown. Any Belgian Catholic churches.” He shook his head with a grimace. “You won’t. But fly home on Brussels Air and you’ll land in their Africa terminal -- they do almost no maintenance of it, construction crap stored there all over the place. Totally shit terminal. But take the bus over to the European connections terminal, and it’s a straight kilometer of diamond shops, all locked-up tight against people traveling from Africa.” His grimace had become a full sneer. “People from Salone,” he used to local word for Sierra Leone. ”Their diamonds are welcome in Europe, just not their bodies.”

Alex glanced at him, and decided it wouldn’t blow his cover to push a little. In Arabic, he said: “And your uncle, he came here with UNICEF then?”

Mena’s ironic smile came to the front, lighting up his dark eyes. “Oh, no, he’s here for the diamonds too. But my family’s been here, been in Sierra Leone, since 1893. There was a crash in the silkworm trade and thousands of Lebanese came here when it was a British colony. We’ll never have citizenship, because we’re still Lebanese, still can go home if we need to. But not my uncle. He stayed through the civil war in the ‘90s. He loves this place. He pays taxes on the diamonds he exports. But them,” he wrinkled his nose at the two Belgian men, "they won’t even book ahead. They have no roots here, no plan. They just get the diamonds, put them in check bags, and leave. You know, before the war, there was 82 million dollars a year in US dollars in diamonds being exported from Sierra Leone? The war comes from Liberia, which has no diamonds to speak of; maybe, $10,000 a year in diamond exports.” He shook a dismissive head. “The war comes. So many die, so, so badly. And the next time taxes are announced, in 2001, only $82,000 a year in diamond exports are taxed in Sierra Leone. Maybe the war hurt production? Maybe the alluvial diamonds were all tapped out.” He leaned across the counter, Alex leaning towards him to hear, “But you know how much Liberia exported that year?”

Alex shook his head.

“80 million US dollars in diamonds.”

Alex took a breath. “So the result of a horrifying civil war was the most valuable resource in the country is all being funneled through a neighboring country, and none of the local people get the benefits of it, but the Belgian --”

“And South Africans. Afrikaaners. Can’t forget them --”

“And the South African diamond merchants keep all of the profits.”

Mena nodded. “Nobody in Freetown wears diamonds, you know that? Nobody. Nobody wants them. But any pretty engagement ring you might care to find in the US, even odds or better, everytime the woman or man wearing it touches that ring, they’re touching a little bit of Sierra Leone.” He smiled and it was all teeth. “Even if they can’t find it on a map.”

“That’s fucked up,” Alex said.

“Yeah,” Mena said. “But what do you do? Leave? Pretend we can’t find Salone on a map either? Stop wearing diamonds?”

“As a start the last idea's not bad,” Alex said.

“Yeah,” Mena said, smile getting brighter. “I’m really more of a steel and leather guy myself.” He slipped Alex’s receipt over. Alex noticed as he folded it in half it had a long international phone number and an email Mena had scribbled at the bottom.

“Thanks for the chat,” Alex said in French. “Dinner’s outside?”

“365 days a year,” Mena said. “Gotta love that equatorial weather.”

Alex smiled and brushed past the men, now nearly dancing with impatience to check-in.

He noticed a little case of wooden carved animals -- lions and giraffes and rhinos -- and turned around.

“Hey, Mena,” he said in Arabic, figuring the man wouldn’t mind inconveniencing the Belgians a second time, “Are these for sale?”

“Sure,” Mena said. “Not a single one of them lives in Sierra Leone, but the tourists like them.” 

Alex snickered at his tone: “I’m good.”

“I’ve got something good though,” Mena said, reaching behind the counter and pulling out a little figurine of a boy reading a book, carved in ebony wood. The Belgians were beginning to mutter, glowering at Alex now.

Alex smiled softly, turning it over in his hand. “That’s perfect. How much?”

They settled on 45,000 leones, which was about the cost of three pricy bottles of water. Alex tucked it in his bag, checked the clock behind the desk to find it was 3:15pm. Then he shared a final smile with Mena, and watched him slowly turn back to the steaming Belgian men with lazy-mouthed apologies.

As he headed through the glass doors into the thick heat of the tropical afternoon, felt his back tense; when he glanced back, he caught one of the Belgian men turned back towards the desk, like he had been watching Alex leave.

Alex knew it was paranoia, but when he got to his 2nd floor room, he moved the heavy sitting table in front of the door and lined up a row of the complimentary water glasses on top of it. Then set his alarm, laid on top of the sheets of the twin bed, knife out on its sheath on his chest, and fell asleep.

He woke and went to Room 214. He knocked on the pale grey door and it slipped open. A nondescript white American man looked him up and down, and held out his hand:

“ID.”

Alex passed over his passport; well, one of them.

The man closed the door. Alex looked back and forth, appreciating the tightly latched windows. Deet-filled bug spray notwithstanding, the less contact he had with mosquitos, the happier he was going to be.

The man opened the door, handed over a small black velvet bag with his passport on top, and then closed the door again.

Alex headed back downstairs and got Mena’s help hiring a taxi to the US Embassy.

The trip through Freetown was beautiful and tough as always. Not so many bulletholes in the buildings as Beiruit, for all their civil war was a decade nearer. The Atlantic was a perfect blue shield against the heat of the day, made milder by the open window. Alex’s driver helped him practice his Krio, pointing out the brightly painted local bus with “Amin Amen” written on the front -- “It’s because he is happy to accept all riders, Muslim and Christian alike,” the man had smiled. “But then, everybody is.”

That was one of the things Alex had forgotten about Sierra Leone -- it was one of the most religiously tolerant countries in the world. ¾ of Sierra Leonians were Muslim and ¼ were Christian, but intermarriage was common, lifelong friendships across tribes and faiths expected, and even in the most horrifying moments of the civil war, it had never fallen to sectarianism.

The taxi rolled-up to the Embassy gates, where another Time Agent had made an appointment for Alex. He walked in, up a low-graded hill across a white stone well-paved courtyard behind the bomb-proofed walls, though extremism was never the flavor in Sierra Leone. He met with the DoD liaison in the quiet shade of one of the walls, handed over the bag, and headed back outside.

The taxi driver was still there, chatting with the gate guard. They took the same route home, Alex counting UN-sponsored ads along the street, humming along to the Senegalese musician on the radio, and wracking his brain for how this mission could possibly have been worth his time from the perspective of the Time Agency.

He had a pleasant dinner with Mena out on the veranda, wiping off the tops of cans of seltzer water with quinine and drinking them in a glass with no ice, pulling more stories from him about life in Freetown and Beirut. He gently turned down Mena’s softly-worded offer to get drinks at his flat, and the man smiled and kept chatting about writing his Masters in how to implement reforms to the global diamond trade that would _actually_ stick.

He headed back to his room, hand tingling where Mena had pressed it in his goodbye, and pleasantly full of good food. The warm night air and comfort of the moment faded once he was back in his room. He pulled out his copy of _To Say Nothing of the Dog_. Before he went to sleep, he shoved the heavy side table against the door, lining the glasses along the top. 

They were probably the only reason he survived.

When the attackers slammed through the door, they smashed the drinking glasses against the stone floor and Alex was off the narrow bed, shoving the mattress off the box-spring and hurtling towards them. It wouldn’t stop bullets, but it made him a lot harder to spot and harder to stab.

Unfortunately, they brought automatic weapons. 

The sound through the mattress was like a helicopter coming in for a landing against his face; he was lucky the first burst of bullets went over his head. He kept shoving with the mattress, feeling it connect against a bulky body, hoping to get them out of the room and into the corridor so he could make a run for it.

The next burst of bullets caught him in the legs.

He fell, prosthetic shattered and calf screaming with red pain, pulling the twisted mattress down on top if himself, for what good it could do him. In his hand he still held the bare-bladed knife. 

Alex heard low, thick voices speaking German. He held still, hoping they would consider him dead enough.

No dice.

Alex heard their boots crunch over the broken glass, the same glass that was working its way into his back. He kept still, barely breathing, firming up his grip on his knife. When he heard the step come close enough he could see the shadow of the man’s boot under the mattress’s edge, he twisted, hips grinding into the glass, and slashed across the man’s achilles tendon. He fell with a sharp scream, writhing on the ground as Alex shoved himself free of the mattress and pulled the bleeding man across his chest, using his body as a shield between him and the other man. He brought his knife to the man’s throat, pressing just enough that even through his pain haze, the man stopped moving.

From the dark in the doorway came another voice in Belgian-accented French: “He has the medspray, Claus, stop your whining.”

_Medspray?_

Alex ignored the impossibility that two men outside of the Time Agency would know about medspray.

“What do you want?” He hissed, shaking Claus for good measure.

“Oh, Captain Manes, this isn’t a negotiation. We have a contract on you, paid for yesterday evening: $25,000 in diamonds. No, the best thing you can do now is die with dignity.”

“Fuck you,” he hissed. “Someone will have heard --”

“We bought out the whole block. Mena may think we don’t book ahead, but we do. Years and years and years ahead.” He stepped forward into the light, giving a crooked smile.

“Now, open or closed casket?”

Claus coughed -- “We can’t. He has to,” a gasp as Alex adjusted his grip on his chest, knife pressing just that more tightly against his throat as the other man advanced, automatic weapon aimed at Alex’s head beside. Claus spoke quickly: “The contract, Erik, he has to be within moments of death when he arrives. His devices, they won’t work on a corpse. They’re tied into his _heart._ ”

Erik sneered: “They don’t care about proof of death.”

“He does! He does! You _know_ he does, Erik! Please!” Claus was shaking and Alex didn’t think it was just with pain.

Erik rolled his eyes but flicked on the light and slung the weapon -- a Herstal FAL now Alex could see it -- over his shoulder. He squatted down, his eyes level with Alex’s, speaking in French.

“You see now, Captain Manes. We will deliver you alive. My friend Claus here is rather more convinced than I of our client’s ability to, how can we say,” and he switched to English with a broad American accent, “‘fuck up our timestreams,’” he worked his mouth, like he disliked the taste of the language. Switching back to French: “So, we have at least several more hours until you will apparently disappear into thin air. In the meantime, we will keep ourselves quiet here. Quiet and occupied.” He gave Alex a nasty grin, the gold in his back teeth flickering in the low light, reading a hand towards him. Alex drew the knife closer to the thick corded muscle under Claus’s pale skin and Erik froze, before continuing in a forced-even voice: “So you will let go of little Claus and we will let you bind your wounds, so you may live to return to your people.”

“Bullshit,” Alex said. “You don’t use an automatic weapon on a target you’re supposed to return alive.”

Erik rocked his head side to side, like he was considering Alex’s words. “True, but then, as you’ve heard, Claus and I had a difference of opinion on our orders.”

“And what’s to stop you from changing them as soon as you have your friend back?” He said, jerking Claus back more tightly against him.

Erik hummed, and then, very slowly, reached into the deep pocket of his tac pants.

He pulled out a grenade.

“How about, I give you this, and you can hold it. If anything happens to you, then we will all die. Sound fair?”

“You’re a fucking psychopath, who fucking carries a grenade in their fucking coat pocket?” Alex spat, and the man spread his hands.

“We were informed you are hard to kill; we came fully prepared. I do know that you cannot remove the pin without letting go of my friend there,” he said. Claus moaned; that was rather a lot of blood pooling out of his boots where Alex had shanked him. _Good_ , Alex thought viciously. If he wasn’t going to get to see Michael or Kyle or Rosa again, this man could suffer too.

“Come, Captain Manes. We are being very reasonable.”

“Who hired you?” Alex demanded. He could feel his heart rate climbing; the throbbing in his calf didn’t _feel_ like they’d hit his major arteries, but he didn’t want to sit here and wait to find out.

Erik shook his head: “Confidentiality is sine qua non with Claus and I. We’d rather die than reveal our secrets.” Claus grunted, but he didn’t object. Alex’s calf sang out with pain as a fresh push of blood worked its way past the skin.

“Fine,” he said, shoving Claus away from him and lunging for the grenade. Erik stayed still, letting him grab it, and not following as Alex moved as fast as he could to put his back against the far wall; the pain of the glass was sharp and real and worth it to have a clear line of sight. He pulled the pin out with his teeth and spat it away, gripping the grenade's safety lever tightly to keep it from going off. Erik was busy pulling off Claus’s boots and so Alex fumbled the knife down, using his free hand to try finding his bag with the medspray. It had been just under the window where he was huddled, but he had no idea where it had gotten to in the chaos.

“Ah ah ah,” Erik said, standing and moving over to him. Alex held up the grenade between them, setting a determined look across his face. “We need that for little Claus. You may have any we have left over.”

“If I bleed out, you’re not going to be able to fulfill your contract,” Alex said. Claus looked down at his leg, the slow way the blood was spreading. 

“You’ll be just fine with a compression bandage, Captain Manes. I was a medic in Iraq, I’m familiar with this type of injury. But poor Claus, he will never walk again without your medspray.”

“Then he shouldn't have fucking tried to kill me!” Alex near-shouted, cinder block walls echoing his words back to him. 

Erik knelt beside him. “Then it is up to you to decide: are you willing to kill yourself with that grenade to stop my friend from being healed.”

Alex held his eyes for a long beat. They were cold, predatory; but not insane. Alex was just to job to him. Just like the Iraqi intelligence agent had been a job in Baghdad. 

Alex wondered if they would have stayed with him while he died, if they’d caught him sleeping.

 _Probably not_.

“Fine,” he said. “It’s in the left-side pocket of my black bag.”

“Thank you,” Erik said. He extracted the bottle, tossed the bag in Alex’s lap, and went back over to Claus. He tipped the groaning other man onto his belly and began applying the medspray to his tendons. They seemed occupied so Alex tried to take an inventory.

His prosthetic was only so much splintered carbon fiber; his stump was untouched. _Thank God_. It would have been something especially horrifying to have to heal that leg again.

Erik hadn’t been wrong about his other calf -- it was a through-and-through, the bone unshattered, the muscle torn up, but nothing medspray couldn’t handle. _If I get back in time_. He had no illusions they would leave him any.

He looked at where the bedside clock was still sitting, bright red numbers glowing at him: 7am. He had to survive for 7 more hours.

Without letting go of the grenade, Alex used his knife to cut away the fabric of his pants away. He made a field compression bandage and tied it tightly on. His mind kept spiraling down what it would be like to lose his _other_ foot, to lose the ability to _walk at all_ , to do _anything_ \--

He forced that line of thought closed. He knew men who’d lost both feet and still walked. His job was to survive this.

Once Claus was healed, Erik closed the door of the room, tossed the empty medspray into the garbage, and carefully swept-up all of the shattered glass with the edge of a colorful folder. Then he set the mattress back on the bed, moving slowly, hand never going towards his rifle. Once it was settled, he sat, with his back against the wall and Claus slouched against him.

He pulled out his phone and, from the motions on his fingers, he had begun to play a game.

The first hour, Alex watched them. But they didn’t move. Claus seemed to have fallen asleep while Erik seemed entirely absorbed by his game. In the second hour, Alex painstakingly removed his prostheses; it was no good to him shattered and he didn’t need to risk stabbing himself with it.

By the fifth hour, the bloodloss from his back and his leg was starting to make his grip weaker. He pulled his injured leg to his chest, wedging his hand between it and his knee. He looped the strap of his bag around his wrist. Erik watched him carefully, but when it was clear he wasn’t going to lose his grip on the grenade, he went back to playing on his phone.

The six hour was the longest. Alex’s mind was almost entirely blank, focusing on each breath long enough to get to the next one. He was barely aware of Erik and Claus, his entire world revolving around the tiny sphere in his hand and the pressure needed to keep it from going off.

When his watch began to beep his 10 second countdown, Erik looked up. His expression remained entirely flat as he raised a knife and flicked it across the room so it buried itself in Alex’s gut. Alex couldn’t cry out, couldn’t speak, as the timestream blossomed around him, but he heard Erik’s voice: “Let’s see you survive that, Captain Manes.”

\--

Alex had never focused on anything harder in his entire life than he was focusing on keeping the grenade pressed between his knee and his chest. He vaguely registered he was on the floor of an industrial loft, the light warm and yellow around him, the smell of soldering and petrichor and pizza and old cement flooring filtering up around him where he curled tight.

He heard a soft: “Alex?”

He coughed, tried to yell, “Michael, get back!” But it came out a choked whisper.

“Alex!”

He heard the sound of knees hit the cement beside his head and he tried to push him away, feeling the knife move in his gut. “Michael, please, you have to go,” he whispered.

He felt gentle hands flutter over his horror show of a back, his sweat-soaked hair.

He tried again: “Grenade, Michael. There’s a grenade. In my hands. Please, I don’t want you to die.”

“Ok,” Michael said, voice sounding hurried, “Ok, Alex, can you show me the grenade?”

Alex shook his head. “You have to get back.”

“Alex,” Michael said, voice soothing, low and quiet, “I can stop it from going off with my powers. Show me the grenade. Just like with the silver ball, right?”

Alex took a shuddering breath and shifted his shoulder, so Michael could see the grenade where he had it pressed against his chest.

“Ok, Alex, I can see the safety lever. I’m holding it down with my powers. You can let go.”

Alex shook his head. He _couldn’t_. He couldn’t risk Michael.

He heard Michael take a slow breath, and saw his face coming into his field of view, like he’d lowered himself to the floor to lie beside him, eyes bright and focused. “Alex, trust me. I’ve got it.” Alex looked into his eyes, trying to explain that it wasn’t about _trust_ it was about _risk_.

“Come on,” Michael murmured. “I’ve got you.”

Alex closed his eyes and let go. He felt the grenade slip from his fingers and then heard the sound of duct tape ripping. The movement shifted the knife in his gut and he held back a sound of pain.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the grenade hovering in the air, safety lever firmly duct-taped down.

“I’ll disassemble it safely after we get you taken care of.” He waved and it flew to settle genly on the far side of the loft. “Can you sit up for me?” Michael asked. Alex shook his head. His breathing was shallow and the only reason his fading vision had let him see Michael was there was literally no one else in the universe he wanted to see more.

“I need to touch you to heal you,” Michael said slowly, “Is that alright?”

“No,” Alex coughed, face spasming with how much that hurt his back, “No medspray. They took it.”

Something entered his vision -- one of Michael’s hands. Except it was beginning to glow a warm orange, hinting at cherry red around the edges. “I don’t need medspray to heal you, Alex. My Mom showed me how. Can I touch you?”

Alex nodded.

"First I'm going to need to take-out the knife. Can you hold still for me?"

"I'll do my best."

"You always do."

Michael gave him to the count of three, and in a smooth motion pulled out the knife and tossed it to the side as Alex clenched his teeth so hard his jaw creaked. He glanced down; such a thin line of blood concealing such deadly damage. Then he hiked Alex's shirt up and placed his hand along Alex's ribs. There was the warmest feeling, like butterflies tap-tap-taping, like a hot bath after a run in the freezing rain, trickled and filtered down his torn-up skin and inside his stomach. His vision began to clear and Alex looked up, to see Michael’s face with an intense look of concentration, breathing steady and even. The raw, numbing pain receded from his belly and after a long moment, Michael let out a hard breath and said: "Back next?"

"It doesn't hurt you?" Alex asked

"It's like I -- absorb it. I'll have to put it somewhere else later, but for now, I'm fine. Think of it like a sponge, soaking up all the pain. I'll have to wring it out, but I've got a lot of spare capacity."

"Ok." He turned, letting Michael lay his hand on the nape of his neck. When Alex’s back felt whole and unmarked, Michael pulled away.

“My,” and Alex was surprised to hear his voice was stronger, “My leg. Left. Caught a bullet to the calf.”

“A bullet -- “ Michael stopped himself. “I need to put my hand near the wound. Can you sit-up for me now?”

Alex nodded, pushing himself up, trying to hold his leg as still as possible. Michael’s eyes flared with fear when he saw the bloodsoaked mess than was Alex’s calf, but bit his lip and carefully untied the knotted cloth with his powers. The blood began to well up from it and he pressed his hands on either side of the wound, touch as gentle as he could make it, even as Alex choked back a sound of pain.

He bowed his head over Alex’s leg, breathing kicking up like he was lifting weights or on a long run. Alex watched, mind clearing as the last of the pain faded back, flowed back under the surface, watched as the wound cleared, the muscles knit back together, and as even the low ache of it faded. He felt a drop of something hit the freshly healed skin, and then again. It was clear and -- “Michael, why are you crying?”

Michael looked up at him then, hands still so, so soft on his leg, voice a low growl: “You show up at my apartment, nearly dead, and you _ask me_ why I’m _crying_ , Alex? _Why I’m crying?_ I could have lost you! I could have lost, everything you’ve ever been, ever were, ever will be! I could have lost all of that and it’s just because,” and he raised a hand to scrub his face, smearing the tears across his cheeks like starshine, “because I just came back from Libya and just got to learn how to heal on that trip and you’re only the 5th person I’ve ever healed _and the only one who would have died if I didn’t_ and you ask _why I’m crying?_ I’m a little stressed, Alex! That’s why I’m crying!”

“I’m sorry, Michael,” Alex said, hand finding his wrist. “I’m sorry to bring this mess to your door.”

Michael tugged him into a hug, arms around his shoulders, face buried wetly in his neck as he grumbled. “I'm not mad that you came to me, Alex. I’m mad that someone hurt you in the first place. I _always_ want you to come to me, if you can. _Always._ ”

“Okay.” Alex said, a little stunned. He gripped the teenager back, just as tight. “You did good, Michael. You -- that’s really good control, with the grenade. And I didn’t know healing was even an option, I feel good as new. I’m safe.” He felt Michael’s breathing hitch, shoulders tight under his hand. “It’s ok, I’m safe.”

Michael nodded. After a long moment, Alex pulled back. He rifled his hand through his hair, getting it off his face, and felt the strap of his bag shift against his wrist.

“I, uh,” he started, pulling the bag onto his lap and unzipping it, “before all the fireworks started, I got you something.”

Michael laughed wetly, settling back and crossing his legs. “You know, Alex, I had a whole plan for the next time I was going to see you. I was going to ask how you are, tell you haven’t gone drinking since we last saw each other, tell you about the PhD program I got into -- it’s my last semester as an undergrad, December 2007.”

He glanced over at the window, and sure enough, a light flurry of snowflakes were sidling past on the inner-city wind. “Yeah?” Alex said, “Well, you still can. But here, you should see this.”

Alex pulled out the miraculously whole statue of the boy hunched over his book out of his backpack. He handed it over: “It’s from Sierra Leone. Books are really hard to come by there, since there’s not a major printing hub in west Africa outside of Nigeria and it’s hard to get things like that across borders sometimes. So it’s really aspirational, to have someone holding a book that tightly, reading that closely.”

Michael held it with careful hands, looking over every part of it. When he looked up at Alex his grin was bright and real. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”

Alex thumbed open his phone. “I also brought you something else. A little less meaningful, but pretty cool.” He flipped to the photos app, and pulled up the photo of the dik-dik.

“It’s a dik-dik,” he said as he turned the phone around.

Michael froze, horrified eyes rising to Alex’s without looking at the screen. “Alex Manes, did you say a ‘dick pick’?”

Alex choked, shaking the phone at Michael until he looked at it: “No! A dik-dik. It’s native to east and southern Africa, but the hotel had a few running around as pets,” Michael was staring down at it and Alex began to pull the phone back, embarrassed, “I just thought it was really cute.”

Michael caught the phone, tapping at the screen. Then he frowned. “I was trying to text it to myself, but it looks like I can’t text from this?”

Alex shook his head. “Can you even imagine what it would take to get a dataplan in every place we might be? That’s a level of financial and data complexity even the Time Agency can’t manage.”

“Well,” Michael said. “What if I wanted you to have my number?”

Alex gently took the phone back.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it on this phone. It’s owned by the Time Agency and I don’t want them having any _hint_ that you exist.”

“Good call,” he said. Then he paused. “Uh, Alex, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Alex slipped his phone back into his pocket, checking his watch: 480 seconds.

“What’s up?”

“There’s,” Michael rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, “There’s a side effect to me healing you. The way that I did.”

“Ok?” Alex said. When Michael didn’t say anything, he leaned closer. “You gonna leave me hanging?”

Michael shook his head. “So, you’re going to get, like, a sparkly iridescent handprint,” he said, speaking quicker and quicker, “And we’ll be able to feel each other’s feelings.”

Alex paused: “Huh.”

“Huh?” Michael repeated.

Alex looked up at the ceiling, thinking about it: “How long?”

“What?”

“How long will be able to feel each other’s feelings?”

“It’s usually about a week, Mom said. But if that’s a week my time, a week your time, if you’re going to feel my feelings now, feel my feelings in your time, I have no idea Alex. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Alex said with forced mildness, “Don’t be sorry. You saved my life. But,” he looked down at his linen shirt and jeans in tatters.

“Do you -- do you want to borrow some clothes? To cover up the,” and Michael had an approximation of jazz hands.

Alex’s voice was a little tight when he said: “It wouldn’t help, I have to strip down naked every time I get back.”

“Oh. That’s -- awful?” Michael said.

“It’s for hygiene, to protect the techs from me bringing back a killer flu or something.” He took a breath. “Do you have any -- make-up?”

“Make-up?”

Alex nodded, brain finally coming more online after stalling out at the thought of feeling Michael’s feelings and him being subjected to the torrent of negativity that was Alex’s day-to-day internal environment. “Make-up. If we can cover-up the handprints for long enough for me to get out of the lab, we’ll probably be able to keep you safe.”

“I actually do,” Michael said, hopping up. He looked at Alex and then knelt. “I’ve also got some crutches if you’d like them.”

“Please.”

He waved his hand and a pair of good quality, well-padded crutches flew through the air from where they’d been tucked in the bedroom area. Michael caught them and handed them over to Alex, moving away once he saw he was ok on his own. Alex swung over to the kitchen, hoping up onto the counter. He had to stop himself from kicking his heels against the steel cabinets. 

Michael came back from the bathroom with a handful of stage make-up. He explained: “I was in a play with Scotch’n’Soda, the Carnegie Mellon student-run theater troupe.” He grinned. “I played Ariel.”

“ _The Tempest?_ ”

“Yep.” He handed over the make-up and Alex began to apply it heavily around his shin, propping it up on his knee. Michael’s voice was quiet when he said: “Can I -- it’ll be hard for you to see around the nape of your neck.”

“Good call,” Alex said, bending his head down, Michael hopping up to sit beside him on the countertop. “So, you’re a magical sprite who gets himself free from being enslaved and then spends the rest of your life fucking with people and also helping them free themselves?”

“What?” Michael laughed, slathering the foundation on the back of Alex’s neck.

“That’s always been _my_ read on Ariel.”

“Everyone else just made mermaid jokes for the entire semester.”

“As if the Colonel would let me watch _The Little Mermaid_ ,” Alex said and Michael’s hand paused.

“You’ve never seen _The Little Mermaid_?” he asked, and if Alex didn’t know any better, he would have sworn Michael was choked up.

“No,” he said, voice purposefully even: “I haven’t seen any of the Disney movies.”

“Not -- not even _Lilo and Stitch?_ ” Michael asked, voice getting a little high even as his hand stayed steady.

“No, I --”

“Alex. I have a very serious request for you.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to watch at least _one_ Disney movie before we see each other again.”

Alex huffed a laugh. “I think I can do that.”

“Good. Because I’m going to quiz you.”

“Any suggestions?”

“ _Lilo and Stitch_ , obviously; umm, _Mulan_ , I think you’d like the ass-kicking, and _Beauty and the Beast_ , because she’s a nerd like us. Not _Aladdin,_ I think you’d find it hella racist. Probably the same for _Pocahauntas_. That one was _not_ popular on the rez.”

“No shit,” Alex said. Then he held back a chuckle as he started covering the slowly emerging handprint on his ribs. 

“What?” Michael asked.

“You, uh, know you’re really, _really_ white, right?”

“What?” Michael asked again.

“I’m going to look like I got mauled by a clown,” Alex said, pointing to his shin, where the pale greasepaint was both successfully concealing Michael’s handprint and about fifteen shades lighter than his own brown skin.

He heard a huffing sound above them, then a crackling, laugh, then a full-out guffaw.

“It’s so fucking white,” Michael said, “Pittsburgh has made me _even whiter than I was before_.”

Alex shook his head, sitting up as Michael finished with his neck. “Better get some time in the desert then. You heading home anytime soon?”

Michael shook his head: “The courses I’m working through, it’s basically a full-time program. There is a new exchange program with the Qatar campus.”

He looked under his eyelashes at Alex, like he was trying to get him to react. Alex kept a bland face.

“You’re not going to tell me _anything_ about that man you met in Doha?” Michael burst out. “The one who you said I looked like?”

Alex shook his head, a slight smile on his face.

He glanced at his watch. “62 seconds. Aside from a Disney movie, is there anything else you need?” He asked.

Michael nodded: “You to stay safe. I’ll patch you up anytime you need it, but I,” he looked down, “I don’t like seeing you hurt, Alex.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Michael asked, glancing down at the device in Alex’s chest before meeting his eyes again.

“Kick complete and total ass at your first year in your PhD program, keep not drinking, and get some more sun,” he reached over and ruffled Michael’s hair, pulling his hand back quickly. ”You’re going to be translucent before this city is done with you. And stay safe.”

“Deal.” He grinned at Alex.

“Deal.” Alex answered.

He sat back a little bit and Michael slid off the counter, picking up Alex’s bag and tossing it to him.

“Thanks for the statue and the dik-dik.”

“Thanks for saving my life.”

The watch began beeping, and Alex tried to keep his eyes open as long as he could. Through the rush of the timestream, he heard Michael’s soft words:

“Anytime, Alex.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the dik-dik/dick pick joke goes to my friend who once ran a college student-filled field team at a political convention using a WhatsApp group, whose #1 rule was “no dick picks” which she would repeat every morning and every night before the drinking started. Each announcement was illustrated, of course, with dik-diks.
> 
> I also want to say I want to imply no disrespect to Mr Jawad’s excellent Family Kingdom Hotel and Resort in Freetown. Every single thing I mentioned here is real, except for the assassins. There were no assassins either time I’ve been there. The numbers on the diamond trade are from the incredible book by Sierra Leonian war journalist Lansana Gberie’s “A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone.”
> 
> Also no disrespect meant to the general category of Belgians; intense disrespect fully intended to the Belgian diamond merchants I met in Freetown, the racist staff of Brussels Air, and the entire diamond industry.


	18. things are good, or so I hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thank you to the commenters. I *did* entirely forget the knife. I went back into the last chapter to fix it, so if you'd like to skim it, you'll see I fixed it. tl;dr: Michael healed the knife wound too.

When Alex landed in the time chamber, he caught himself against the curved glass wall before he could fall. He glanced down at the torn places in his shirt -- the grease paint on his ribs seemed to be holding back the light of Michael's handprints. He felt warmth rising under each mark, and a gentle tapping against the skin, like a deep bruise healing right. He couldn't feel any emotions yet through it, though as fast as his heartrate was going on his way out of the timestream, he wasn't sure how he’d be able to tell.

Alex looked up: the entire lab was empty except for the Colonel.

He stood in the middle of the room, hands clenched into fists at his sides. Alex felt fear, real, jagged fear rip through him, freeze him to his bones and set his hands to trembling. He tried to block off the emotion, tried to stop it from getting to Michael -- but there was nothing he could do to stop the flood.

But Captain Alex Mane had decades of experience not showing his fear to his father, so when he spoke, his voice was even: “Colonel.”

“Alex.” The Colonel replied. “Why are you still alive?”

Alex glanced around the room -- the microphones, the video, _everything_ was off. _Where were the techs, Kyle -- Flint even?_ He was suddenly glad for the hard glass walls of the time chamber. 

Some small part of him had hoped he’d misunderstood what he’d gathered from Claus and Erik about who had hired them. It hurt some impossibly, _stupidly_ , constantly hopeful part of him to be proven wrong. But he needed to get out of here alive to deal with that. _Survive first._ “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sir.”

His father’s snort of derision sent Alex’s traitor spine to stiffening: “Don’t play fucking stupid with me, boy. I know I raised a pervert, but I didn’t raise a dummy. You survived an assassination attempt that should have left you bleeding your last drop on the floor of that time chamber; I cleared the room to ensure it. You have no idea the fuss Valenti kicked up about it --” there was a crash, the sound of shouting through the broad, tall metal doors that led to the reception room. The Colonel twisted his lips in disgust; _he hates anyone who’s messy_ : “Is _still_ kicking up a fuss about it, from the sounds of it.”

“I’m not going to waste time asking why.” Alex said.

The Colonel rolled his eyes: “After that stunt you pulled in Kuwait? Stealing those government assets, bankrupting the potential for decades of knowledge, siding with the enemy: boy, I’ve been waiting 26 years to see this government get its best use out of you and finally be rid of you.”

“How high did the orders come down from?” Alex asked, voice finally shaking with it.

And there it was -- the hitch, the freeze in his father’s frame. There was a _reason_ the cameras were off; a _reason_ there were no techs in the room.

“Corporal punishment of Time Agents is in the perview of the Director of the Time Agency,” the Colonel started but Alex interrupted.

“You don’t have a kill order for me.” His voice was flat even as his skin felt like it was trying to turn itself inside out. He’d assumed his father had finally used his portfolio, his collection of Alex's failed missions, to make the case that Alex was too much of a failure to be worth the continued trouble of feeding and housing. He’d assumed -- in a flash, at a speed too impossible to track -- that everyone he’d ever worked with, that everyone who’d ever cared for him or built him an alias or cut his clothes to fit the time and place -- that they had all been in on it, had all agreed that he was worth more a dead soldier to celebrate on Memorial Day than a living Time Agent. But the rising color in the Colonel’s cheeks disagreed. Alex repeated: “You don’t have a kill order for me.”

His father growled: “I didn’t need one. I still don’t --”

And he strode towards the control beside the time chamber, the ones that could pump the entire chamber full of gas to kill any anachronistic microbes Alex might be carrying -- gas he could not breathe.

Alex was shaking, hand sweaty against the glass, holding his head high as he watched his father punch the controls. He didn’t want Michael to feel his fear, didn’t want him to feel him die. He tried to think of good things -- saving Michael from Mr Ridley, dancing with Rosa, seeing Michael control his powers, hiking to the reef of El Capitan with Kyle, hearing Michael laugh. His mother’s touch. Getting his strength back after his injury. He felt a surge of warmth, and the tapping under his skin grew to be like a heartbeat, strong and solid and he was, for a moment, so intensely grateful that he wasn’t going to die alone. That of every death he’d imagined, on every cold and desert night, that it was going to be one of the better ones. One with connection.

The gas began to trickle up through the grates in the floor into the time chamber, white and misty, and Alex sucked in a breath of the last of the clear air.

The door opened.

Just a crack, but through it slipped Flint, shutting it with the full force of his body behind him, like someone was trying to push in after him. He turned around and straightened his uniform with one hand, holding up a phone high above his head. It had little sparkles on the back. It was hard to tell through the gas, but he could swear it was _Valenti’s_ phone.

“Sir?” He heard him call, eyes strictly on the Colonel, eyes not even glancing at him.

“Flint, this is none of your affair. Leave.”

Flint’s back straightened up immediately, but he kept stalking forward. “Sir, I think you need to hear this,” he paused. “Before you finish this mission.”

The Colonel had an entire dictionary of threatening looks, and this was one that left Alex grinding his teeth to keep from flinching away from even as his lungs ached. But the Colonel punched in the code and the gas began to recede. Alex was coughing and gasping through the first thirty seconds of Flint’s explanation, ears rushing with the sound of his staggering heartbeat. The handprints pulsed against his skin, invisible but present and soothing.

“-- Those were his only two conditions. We’re in the process of confirming with the Ambassador.”

“Have a team dispatched immediately. Don’t give him a chance to change his mind.”

Flint took off at a dead sprint and the Colonel turned to Alex, eyes wide and somehow, horribly, approving. “Look like it’s your lucky day. Valenti really pulled it out of the hat for you this time, boy.”

“What,” Alex said, voice cracking, “what’s going on?” The handprints still felt warm, like a hug, like a protection that couldn’t be turned off.

The Colonel shook his head, heading towards the door to the reception room: “You’ve finally proved useful.”

He opened it and only missed being barreled over by Kyle by a quick turn of his shoulders. Kyle locked eyes with Alex and then looked away, like he couldn't hold his gaze, racing to start the decontamination protocol as the lab techs filtered into the room, wide-eyed and curious.

Alex stayed silent, staring at Kyle, mind racing even as his heart rate slowed. He sat to strip, eyes trying to search Kyle’s face for answers. He held his breath through the gas and then gratefully used the replacement prosthetic Kyle shoved through the double-sealed go box. Then he got dressed in the spare uniform.

As soon as the time chamber door was opened, Kyle was at the ramp, slipping something in his pocket, voice low: “We need to get out of here.”

Alex nodded, glancing at the techs, but following beside Kyle quickly through the polished cement corridors and exposed steel hallways until they got to the parking lot. They loaded into his truck and were heading back through the late afternoon light to downtown Roswell in minutes.

“What _happened_?” Alex asked.

Kyle glanced at him, tightening his grip on the wheel before answering in a slow, measured voice: “The Colonel kicked us all out of the room, said you were contaminated and only he could run the proper process to decontaminate you. Some bullshit about Ebola, which scared the lab techs, even though you were in Sierra Leone 5 years before it even showed up, the racist fucks.” He took a breath. “I got a call, one of the aliens in Libya, he said you were in danger. He must have gotten my number from Marie and Jared. He said he was willing to trade some alien tech, something the Colonel, the Time Agency, had been wanting for years and years, if you were freed and the Colonel immediately retired.”

“Why,” Alex demanded, hand going over the handprint on his ribs, trying to keep a sense of calm humming under his veins, “Why would someone do that?”

Kyle shrugged, voice steady: “He said they owed you. That they were alive and free because of you.”

“But why -- why would the Colonel retire? Just like that -- not for some tech, no way.”

Kyle’s face got a little sneaky. “I may have slipped my work phone under one of the chairs when the Colonel ordered us out, recording the audio in the room using the ACLU’s Mobile Justice app.” He patted his pants pocket. “I told Flint it was livestreaming everything happening in there, at-ing the relevant Congressional oversight committees and staffers; he believed me. Told his father that's what was happening; I asked the man from Libya to include it in his conditions.” He gave Alex a sly look. “That’s not really how it works, with the ACLU app. You need to end the recording for it to be uploaded. And you can delete it again if you submit a request, which I will do as soon as we get home.”

“Keep the recording though,” Alex said and Kyle nodded.

Alex bit his lip. He felt a frisson against his fingers, like something was fizzing under his skin, centered on the handprints. But it settled down, became that warm, soft feeling again. He took the first full breath he’d had since Sierra Leone.

“Thank you, Kyle. He would have killed me.”

“No shit, Alex. I thought -- when I saw your clothes, I thought you were dead man walking. Was that blood on your stomach, back, and shin?”

Alex nodded, rubbing his hand against his ribs. “Michael healed me. Left -- left these handprints. I can feel him, feel his emotions.”

Kyle’s voice was a little stilted: “And how -- how is he?”

Alex smiled at his profile in the red-gold of the late afternoon sun: “He feels calm, safe.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t know if I’m feeling Michael in 2018 or 2007, or how time dilation works across the handprints, but for a minute there, when I thought I was going to die, it was -- it was nice. Knowing I wasn’t alone.”

“Should I submit the recording?” Kyle asked in a rush, “I know it wasn’t the deal your father made, but he tried to _kill_ you, Alex. He shouldn’t just, get to ride into the sunset.”

Alex frowned, working his fingers a little. “Keep the recording, archive it a few places. There’s no statute of limitations on contract murder in New Mexico. Let’s see what he does. I assume Flint is taking over?”

“I have no idea. I wanted to get you out and safe as soon as I could.”

“And I still have my job?”

Kyle glanced at him: “We didn’t talk about that, but if you want it, I assume it’s still yours.”

“I do,” he said. _It’s the only way I’m going to be able to keep helping, to earn some of this gift back._

As they pulled up in front of Kyle’s apartment building, Alex heard his voice, soft and unsure: “I still don’t get it. Why would someone trade -- anything valuable like that, anything they’d been protecting for so long?”

Kyle turned off the engine and turned fully in his seat, meeting Alex’s eyes hard and holding them fast: “You have people in the world who love you, Alex. Who love you more than anything. I know you’re working on getting to that, that sense of inalienable value in yourself, but you have to know, you have to _feel_ , that there are people out there who love you.”

He felt -- a big rush, something warm and overwhelming, like getting rolled under by a warm wave in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Oman. But this time, he could breathe underwater.

He felt an answering surge of emotion, of strong, warm feelings, through the handprints and as he reached for the car door handle, he said: “I can feel it.”

\--

Alex checked out medically to Kyle’s satisfaction, horrified though he was that Alex had left live ordinance in the hands of a teenager with some duct tape -- “That’s _not safe,_ _Alex!_ ” -- and they’d both gone to bed early. He could hear the hum of Kyle’s voice on the phone in his bedroom, but shut his door to avoid eavesdropping.

Alex undressed slowly, rubbing the grease paint off of his handprints with a warm wet cloth. They still felt flushed, radiating the sense of warmth and safety. He kept finding himself trying to spiral, to go into a pit of feeling unworthy of whatever had been traded for his safety, his freedom, his _life_.

He looked at his body, the new scars. He twisted in front of the full mirror on the back of the bedroom door, seeing where his back had been torn to pieces, now flecked with thin white lines where the glass had been pulled out, left to plink onto the floor of Michael’s loft. He looked at his calf, where the bullet hole was shiny and clean. And the little incision in his gut, like he was Madeline in that old house in Paris covered with vines, after she’d gotten her appendix out.

He’d used to love that story, on the rare occasions he’d been in an actual base school with actual children’s books, when he’d been noticed long enough to get swept up into the classroom culture. A little girl with no parents, people around her who were fond of her mischief, and a whole, safe world to explore. Those books could have been describing heaven, not a pre-war Paris.

He sat on the bed, taking off his prosthetic. This had been one of the things he’d had to do, when he was getting his strength back after his injury, to help reintroduce himself to his body. He’d hated it, hated how little he looked like himself in the mirror. It wasn’t just the leg, it was the haircut, the skin as neutral and unmarked a doll’s.

He’d wanted to get tattoos since he’d first met his first Special Forces guy, one of the few groups in the US military allowed visible tattoos. He’d been forbidden, since his body had to fit into any time or place he was sent to. It was why he’d been so grateful Michael had offered UV tattoos in Doha -- it let him have something of himself, something on his body that marked it as _his_ , without putting him through the ringer of his father’s queerphobia and whatever review board he would have constructed to force Alex to get it removed -- without anesthetic.

He looked at himself in the mirror, his broad shoulders, his well-muscled waist. His skin, now clear of Michael’s pale-toned greasepaint. His stump, his thighs, his foot as he curled his toes. He looked at where his hair grew thicker, his cock sitting still and quiet against the inside of his leg. He looked himself in the face, voice quiet enough that he couldn’t be heard over the AC:

“There are people in the world that love me.”

It felt strange to say aloud; stranger to hear. He tried saying it again, looking himself in the eyes.

Then he flicked off the lamp and went to bed, sleeping on his side with his hand tucked across his ribs.

\--

The next morning, Alex and Kyle went on their run. Alex had slept fitfully, the last adrenaline from the mission and what he’d come back to spiking through his veins at random moments throughout the night. But he’d felt the warmth from the handprints and tried to feel enough comfort to send some back through them, so whichever Michael was feeling his feelings didn’t get goosed awake at 2am -- or at least, went to back to sleep easier.

They stopped into the Crashdown Cafe and Kyle ordered his usual sugary monstrosity as Alex got a heaping plate of eggs with Christmas-style chili.

The man in the black hat wasn’t at the counter. When Liz came to hang out with them at their booth, Alex kept finding his eyes drifting back to the empty stool at the counter. The sheriff’s deputy was still there in his booth, forehead creased as he glared down into his coffee.

“Hey, Liz,” Alex asked, “where’s the cowboy?”

She froze, glancing at Kyle before turning to face Alex. There was a sadness, a worry in her eyes that made him sit back. “He’s in jail.”

“What for?” Alex said. The guy had looked a little like an outlaw in that black hat costume, but he figured it was the kind of cowboy cosplay that was common around the Southwest.

Liz’s smile was sad: “His usual. But his friend, the one who’s on a long trip, when he gets back, he’s going to bail him out. It’ll be ok.” She glanced at Kyle. “I know it will.”

“You guys have a lot of friends in the justice system?” Alex asked, taking a big bite of eggs.

Kyle cut in, voice a little sharp: “There’s a lot of reasons people get locked-up, Alex. It doesn’t mean he’s done anything wrong.”

Alex held his hands up. “Sure, I know that. Mom spent her fair share of time in county for pouring sugar into oilmen’s tanks and slashing cops’ tires.”

“He’s a good man.” Kyle dug in, voice firm.

“No argument from me. I hope he gets out soon.”

Liz shared another long look with Kyle: “Us too.”

\--

Alex opened his eyes in Sadr City on November 3rd, 2003, the suburb of Baghdad most people who lived in the Green Zone would never enter. He was crouched under an olive tree in a corporate courtyard; he got up to sit on the bench beside it to get his bearings. He was wearing Army fatigues, with make-up over the handprint on the nape of his neck, ribs and shin, and with all the documentation necessary to prove he was worth listening to when it came to enlisted soldiers’ assignments. He had more make-up in his bag, for when he needed more cover up to return home.

Flint had called him while he was at the Crashdown to tell him he had a new mission, voice clearly trying to sound authoritative. Kyle had scrutinized the briefing back at the apartment, but even though nowhere in Iraq in 2003 was truly safe, Alex thought it was safer than most. Kyle had backed down.

Alex’s mission was simple: ensure that the American soldier tasked with guarding the gate of the Sadr City Council meeting did not shoot and kill the chairman of the council for refusing to give up his personal pistol. The Time Analysts had found a replacement soldier and newly suggestion protocol for physical searches of elected officials, and believed that if Alex could get the two of those to the Sergeant in charge of assigning that guard duty, the Chairman’s life would be spared and Sadr City could avoid the street protests and destructive fear that had followed in Alex’s timeline, hampering the transition back to self-rule. 

Alex looked around: he was within the perimeter of Camp Marlboro, the HQ of the US Army 2nd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Camp Marlboro was inside the abandoned Sumer cigarette factory located on the eastern side of Sadr City. 

He watched an armored vehicle peel away from the tank-guarded gate, bracketed on either side by 12 foot poured concrete blocks like those that now ringed Gaza. There were few enough armored vehicles in Baghdad at this time, even fewer with the anti-IED hardening to the base of them that would begin to save lives in half-a-decade. He remembered the driver of their truck on this trip grumbling about that when his father had commandeered one of the few that had underbelly armor for their day visit to the camp. Aside from the grumbling, Alex’s main memories of this visit were of the signs, in Arabic and English, advertising the long-since bankrupted cigarette brands that had used to be manufactured here, their right colors faded by the Iraqi sun.

Through the closing gate, he could see a crowd of kids in baggy t-shirts, playing tag on the far sidewalk, watching the base carefully. The oldest was about 13, how old he’d been when he’d visited this base. Where Alex sat smelled like broken asphalt and crushed olive leaves, with the stale smell of the cigarette butts soldiers had left behind. There were a dozen soldiers with automatic weapons standing in the noonday sun, half a dozen more propping the concrete wall of the former factory up in the shade. Alex reached down, picking a few olives off of one of the torn-off branches, and slipping them into his pocket; he wouldn’t be finding any souvenirs in Sadr City and he wanted to bring Michael something to share.

Alex was looking for Sergeant Morales, had seen his picture and knew his daily schedule. He headed towards where he was most likely to find him: the mess.

Folding tables, MREs, months-old copies of _USA Today_ \-- it was what he expected. He found the Sergeant -- a large, muscular man with a truly fantastic mustache -- eating his lunch.

“Sergeant Morales? I’m Captain Alex Manes, 490th Civil Affairs Battalion.” The other man stood, saluting him as Alex returned the gesture. “May I sit?” Sergeant Morales nodded, dark eyes steady, glancing down at his food. Alex gestured: “Please don’t let me stop you eating, I know you’re busy.”

“Thanks,” he said, applying himself to his meal.

Alex pulled out his briefing. “I have a bit of a weird assignment.” Sergeant Morales frowned over at him, but waited for him to continue. “My Commander sent me here with a request to have a specific soldier assigned to gate duty for the next few City Council meetings. I know it’s your purview, but there’s been some complaints how about the weapons searches are going. We also wanted to request that anyone who is identified as a Councilmember be exempt from searches.”

Sergeant Morales looked at Alex skeptically. “So what happens if one of them comes in with a bomb strapped to his chest?”

Alex nodded, taking his concern seriously. “The thing is -- the Council was hand-selected by the US military. If we fucked up so badly that we selected someone to run this city who wants to blow himself up, thing are so fubar there’s no going back from it. I think we have to show trust to the very few guys we’ve already vetted, or we’re going to lose a lot more than we gain.”

Sergeant Morales mulled this over. He looked up at Alex, narrowing his eyes: “This political crap is fucking exhausting. You know?”

Alex nodded, nudging the memo towards him across the white folding table. “No shit. But what’s nice about this, is if it fucks up, it’s on me and mine. You’re out of the line of fire.”

The Sergeant nodded, taking that into consideration. He scanned through the memo and then glanced up at Alex.

“Looks legit. Ok, I’ll switch the roster and make sure the guys know not to search the councilmembers.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Alex paused, looking around. “Hey, my ride back to my base isn’t until tomorrow morning, who can I see about getting a bedroll around here?”

Sergeant Morales’s eyes lit up for the first time since Alex had sat down. “That’ll be the quartermaster,” he pushed his finished plate away and hauled himself to standing. “I’ll take you.”

\--

Alex got his sleeping assignment and spent a quiet afternoon staying out of the way of the regular operation of the base. He found some old Arabic textbooks on the bookshelf made of old shipping pallets that passed for a library and brushed up on his Iraqi dialect. A private wandered over to see if he wanted to practice some dialogues and they spent a quiet evening asking each other about their mothers and favorite foods and addresses. He slept on the ground in one of the big offices in the former factory, like everyone else, and listened to the distant pop of gunfire and warplanes overhead. The handprints were quiet, still warm and there, but not zinging the way they had been back in Roswell.

He did PT with some of the other officers in the morning, then as noon approached he found a quiet closet to sit in to slip back into the timestream. 

\--

Alex opened his eyes on a green, grassy hillside. It was a warm summer night, the sound of an American city humming around him, tall buildings in the distance and a soft wind in the pale-bodied maple trees. He sat-up and looked around him; there was someone else on the hillside wearing all black, crouching under a small tripod-held telescope.

“Michael?” he murmured.

Michael turned around, moonlight highlighting his halo of curly hair: “Alex!” He said, scrambling out from under the telescope and pulling Alex to his feet before wrapping him in a lanky-armed hug. Alex hugged him back tight, feeling the handprints come to life, tingling and brimming over with a soft sensation.

“You’re ok,” Michael said. 

Alex nodded: “All healed up.”

Michael pulled back, pressing his hand over his chest: “And it hasn’t been a week for you yet, I can still feel,” and he gestured to where the handprints glowed gently under Alex’s skin. Alex felt them pulse quietly under the attention and smiled back. “You’ve been feeling them?”

Michael shook his head. “Not since you’ve been gone. Once you went into the timestream, it was like they faded out entirely for me.”

 _That means that Michael, wherever he is in 2018, has been the one who I’ve been feeling_. Alex felt better about that in a way; he hadn’t been looking forward to going through a teenager’s emotions with him in quite that in-depth a way, particularly the speedrun version of them that a time-dilation might cause.

He looked around: “It’s summer 2008? You’re still in Pittsburgh?”

“Yep, we’re in Schenley Park, just off campus.” Michael said, tugging his wrist to bring him over to the telescope. “I’m looking at Antares, want to see?”

“Sure,” Alex said, thinking of the tattoo on his inner wrist. Michael sat and Alex sat beside him, pressed together from shoulder to leg as Michael adjusted the telescope and carefully moved away, letting Alex get into position.

Alex looked through the cold metal eyepiece, blinking to get his eyelashes out of the way. There it was, glimmering in the night sky.

“I didn’t know Pittsburgh got this dark at night.”

“It didn’t used to,” Michael murmured, voice moving the hair around his ear. “It used to be the hills glowed with leftover slag. Men who worked in offices downtown would change their shirts at lunch so they wouldn’t be grey in their meetings because of all of the smoke from the steel factories.” He shifted, shoulder slipping behind Alex’s a little, taking just a tiny bit of his weight. “But the city’s shrunk by 30% since its height in the ‘70s, and the steel industry moved on, so there’s a lot less light pollution. Also,” and Alex could hear the grin in his voice, “You can get a house here for like $125,000.”

“Wow,” Alex said. “I was thinking about getting a place in Roswell, but it’s a bit pricier than that.”

“Yeah?” Michael asked. “What kind of house do you want?”

Alex moved the telescope towards the crescent moon; it was cool to see the glimmer of stars, but he’d always loved seeing the shapes in the surface of the moon in greater detail more than picking out specific constellations.

“Hmm,” he said, “Someplace to put my books. All one story, so it’s easily accessible. Also, two story houses get so freaking hot in the desert. Really thick walls, to cut down on AC. And --” without looking away from the telescope, he rummaged in his pocket, pulling out the olives he picked up in Sadr City. “I brought you something.”

He pulled away, smiling at Michael who held his two cupped hands out with a grin, eyes closed. He put the olives in his palm, curling his fingers over them. Michael opened his eyes and peered down in the darkness at the soft green shapes.

“Olives from Baghdad.”

"Which time?” he asked, pulling out his phone to take a note. “I have to update your timeline.”

“Sierra Leone in 2009 last time, Sadr City in 2003 this time.”

He noted it down: “Thanks. And how about,” he reached for Alex’s hand, smoothing his fingers flat and placing one of the olives back into his palm. “How about I grow mine and you grow yours, and some day, we can compare our trees.”

“I’ve never grown a plant before,” Alex started and Michael nudged his shoulder.

“It’s not a big deal if it doesn’t work, but it would be fun.”

“Okay,” Alex said, curling his fingers carefully around the olive before slipping it into his pocket. He checked his watch: 824 seconds.

“Hey, want to stargaze the old fashioned way?” Michael asked, voice careful.

“What’s ‘the old fashion way’?” Alex asked, suspicious.

Michael huffed a laugh. “I don’t have any designs on your virtue. I figured we could lay on the hillside and look at the stars.”

Alex wrinkled his nose at the phrase “designs on your virtue” but smiled and said: “Sure.”

Michael packed-up the telescope into its carefully padded black bag, zipper loud in the quiet midnight of the summer night.

“Here, I know a place. It’s just over the hill.”

“Ok,” Alex said. 

Michael walked them across the smooth grass, the green and growing smell of it rising up around them. They moved under trees that dappled the starlight, moving across their bodies so in one moment they both looked like they were wearing fatigues and in another they both looked like they were wearing grad student black. Alex felt the character of the day slipping away, his own sense of self slipping back.

“We have to save time to put make-up on the handprints,” he said as they wound towards the sound of flowing water.

“No problem,” Michael murmured.

They came into a clearing rounded by a creek that cut deeply into the hillside on three sides, the grass spongy and dry. The sound of small frogs floated up from the creekbed. Michael looked around, nodded as if satisfied, and flopped down on the ground. 

Alex lowered himself a little more carefully, sitting cross-legged on the dry grass, looking up at the sky. 

Michael tugged his sleeve: “You’re gonna get a crick in your neck that way.”

Alex huffed a little and then, slow as breathing, laid back, shoulder bare inches away from Michael’s. Michael grumbled and wriggled closer, stretching his arm up and bumping it against the top of Alex’s head until he lifted it and Michael slipped it under. Alex laid back, worried his head would be too heavy for Michael's arm, but Michael just sighed in contentment and moved just a little bit closer so Alex was tucked against him.

Michael traced his hand across the sky. “You know, most of the names we have for constellations, they’re from the Arabic words for them. When I was in Libya this time, I wanted to see if I could learn some Arabic, some different kinds of astronomy. But it turns out, nearly all of so-called Western classical astronomy is just cribbed from medieval Arabic astronomy. Almost all of the constellations are the same.”

“What’s Libya like?” Alex asked.

He could hear the grin in Michael’s voice. “Beautiful. The Tibesti Mountains are incredible in the far south. And there’s this place, almost smack-dab in the center of the Sahara, called Wow-a-Namous.”

Alex nearly giggled: “‘Mosquito lake’?”

“Yep,” Michael said, popping the ‘p’. “It’s this crater lake formed in the belly of this volcano. You can see it from Google Maps if you scroll all the way out. It’s a little black dot, from all of the soot.”

“I’ll have to look it up later,” Alex said.

“You’ve never been?”

Alex shook his head, feeling Michael’s curls brush against his ear. “No, I never got to go to Libya. It’s a lot more peaceful in my time than it was in other timestreams. But it’s not someplace I’ve gotten a chance to go. Hey,” he said, having a thought, “Do you know who the Ambassador from the Antaran community there is?”

“Hmm, it was Mom a few years ago, but I think it’s Jarush now. Hey, did you hear about the crazy guy they found in a pod in the desert near Roswell?”

“No?”

“It was nuts, he’s been there since the 1947 crash. Crazy as a bug in a jar after all this time with no one to talk to. Tried to go after Isobel for some horrifying, fixated reason.” Alex felt him shudder. “It was all over a few years ago, he’s living in Libya, getting rehabilitated. Really creepy dude.”

“Isobel’s ok?”

“Yeah,” Michael said, brightening again. “She’s running the Chamber of Commerce, stole it from the hands of these mad Republican Tea Party guys before she turned 17; she joined originally for an event planning business she’s been running with her adoptive Mom. The old guys who ran it thought because she’s blond and pretty and young she would be like them, but,” and Alex could hear the nasty smirk in his voice, “No fucking dice. She invited the local Planned Parenthood affiliate to join at her first meeting and has doubled the number of women business owners who chair committees. She’s such a fucking badass.”

“And Max?”

“He’s -- he’s good. He’s on a big roadtrip with this girl he’s been pining for since forever. She’s really cool, going to be a crazy mad scientist someday. He hasn’t told her about the,” and he wiggled his fingers. 

“It’s a big thing to tell someone about,” Alex said. 

Michael nodded: “But I think he’ll do it. He loves her a lot.”

“That’s a good reason.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “How are we doing for time?”

Alex checked his watch: 376 seconds.

“Want to get the make-up on now, so we don’t have to worry about it later?” Michael asked.

“Sure,” Alex said, sitting up carefully. He pulled the make-up out of his bag.

“I can get your neck again?” Michael asked and Alex nodded, turning to face him. Michael folded his legs, knees tight against Alex’s, and held out his hand. Alex poured the foundation into it, bending his head down so it nearly brushed Michael’s shoulder. Alex hiked his own shirt up, quickly applying the foundation to the brightly shimmering skin. Then he moved to his ankle, trying not to focus on the soft way Michael’s fingers moved the foundation against the sensitive short hairs of his neck. When he couldn’t see the shine of either handprint anymore, he pulled back, breathing a little tight in his chest.

He glanced down at his watch. “108 seconds to go.”

Michael’s smile was close and bright.

“We can stargaze for another minute then.”

Alex chuckled, laying back down. “Sure.”

This time Michael moved Alex’s arm away from his body and tucked himself against his side, cheek fitting into on the low slope between his shoulder and his breastbone.

“I don't think you can see the stars from down there,” Alex murmured.

He felt Michael shake his head. “They’ll be there in a minute. You won’t.”

Alex let himself tighten his arm around Michael’s shoulders, just for a moment.

“Yeah.”

Michael sat-up when they only had 20 more seconds to go, giving Alex a quick hug before moving 6 feet away. 

His smile was sad in the dappled moonlight when he said: “I’ll see you next year, Alex.”

Alex shared the smile: “It’s a deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Here’s the story about the US soldier killing the chairman of the Sadr City Council: https://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1205/p01s04-woiq.html  
> Also, Schenley Park is a lovely place. I got engaged in a tree about a 4 minute walk from where Alex and Michael went stargazing. At the bottom of the hill is a lovely little botanical garden.


	19. silence you've cleaned up

Alex landed in the time chamber and before he opened his eyes, he was hit with a tidal wave of relief. Just, mind-bending, knee-shaking relief. It took him a few hunched-over, gasping seconds while Kyle yelled his name from the control panel to realize it wasn’t _his_ relief; it was coming from the handprints. From Michael in 2018.

 _Missed me, huh?_ He thought -- and then wondered briefly if the handprints allowed Michael to hear his thoughts. When no other thoughts appeared in his mind, he decided to assume not. He was mostly glad; he wanted to keep his thoughts to himself, even if his feelings were fair game for the next few days.

“Are you wounded?” Kyle was shouting, over the in-chamber speakers.

He held up the OK symbol to Kyle as the flood of relief petered down to a warm, buoyant feeling, like he couldn’t sink; like floating in the Dead Sea.

“Good. We’ll have you out of there in a minute Captain Manes.”

Alex looked around the room. There were a dozen US Army soldiers, all wearing patches for the 2nd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Alex waved as Flint ushered them into the reception room.

Alex tried to send a ping of good feelings towards Michael, something of the warmth of that summer evening in Pittsburgh, the fun of seeing him showing off what he knew of the universe. As the soldiers filtered out, he felt in his pocket for the olive Michael had pressed warm and tight into his palm. He shoved it deeper before he began to undress.

“You ok?” Kyle murmured as Alex walked down the ramp of the time chamber after changing into his replacement clothes, lab techs swirling around them.

“Yeah, I’m pretty great.”

“The Time Analysts tell me, in your last timeline, there was something called ‘the surge’ that wasn’t needed because of what you did on this last mission; that a lot of people owe you their lives, Iraqis and Americans.”

Alex bit his lip: “I’m glad it worked.”

“Ready to head out?”

Alex glanced back at the go-box. “I’m going to wait to get my clothes back. I’ve got my bike.”

“You ok doing the post-mission check-up here then? I’ve got to head out right after -- I’m bringing Mom breakfast.” Alex checked the wall clock: 6am.

“You’re a good son.” Alex said, a twinge under his heart. He felt an answering bubble of warmth through the handprints and hid a smile.

Kyle saw the expression anyway, but didn’t say anything, eyes close on the lab techs.

The check-up went fine, and Kyle was careful to keep from smudging the coverup away from the handprints. They kept their conversation mild and easily recorded; Alex had no idea if Flint was still bugging every room in the building, or if the Colonel was still listening in whatever retirement meant for him. But he wasn’t going to take any chances.

They agreed to meet-up at Crashdown for dinner before Kyle headed out and Alex headed towards the on-site laundry.

The thing about time travel that nobody ever remembered, was it took a lot of laundry. Alex remembered reading about a polygamous Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints compound in northern Arizona whose patriarch had decided, 10 years in, that everyone should dress in these massive, faux-prarie-colonist dresses and shirts. It upped the daily laundry requirements for his massive family from 2 loads of laundry a day to 17. That had stuck with Alex. That a father’s whim could so burden everyone around him, because he was pursuing some higher goal. It was rare at that age for Alex to have space to doubt his father, but that had been a key moment.

So when he’d joined the Time Agency officially at 18, gotten the implant, gone on his first mission and come back bruised, bloodied and heaving, he’d gotten up off the time chamber floor, undressed in front of his father’s pale eyes and a roomful of Generals, gone through the decontamination process, and changed into a second uniform. He'd watched the lab techs pack his go box -- creatively labeled "Alex Manes Go Box" -- onto a cart and take it down one of the long corridors.

After that mission's debriefing, either to avoid going back to Flint’s room or because he was genuinely curious, Alex had gone to find his clothes from that mission. He’d wandered the corridors, asking office workers and maintenance techs until finally an old man with a mop had told him to go down into the basement.

That’s where he’d found Patrice Shapiro. Patrice was large, irritable, and firmly convinced everyone in a uniform was chronically infected with the idiot virus. Including Alex. But she’d let him wait for his clothes, in the dark and heat and quiet of the laundry center as she read her magazines.

She was the reason that everyone in the building hadn't died of every infectious disease Alex and every other Time Agent had every brought back on their bloodied clothes, why the crops in the southwest hadn’t been eaten by every weevil and fly that could tuck itself into the sly apple or sandwich some of the Time Agents slipped into their backpacks on their way back from Kazakhstan or Prague.

Patrice didn’t allow souvenirs and she didn’t make exceptions.

Well.

Mostly.

“Morning Ms Shapiro,” Alex said as he stepped into the laundry room.

“Alex,” she said with a grunt as she hefted a massive laundry basket from one industrial washer to a dryer. “First it’s the little ball thing, now I’m guessing it’s something else, or you’d just be sitting against that wall with one of your books. It’s worth my job, making these exceptions for you kiddo. You’d better make a pretty good case.”

Alex slouched against the wall, looking up hopefully. “I’ve never asked before?”

“Except for that jingly ball that almost took-out my washer casing before you fessed-up.”

“Valid.” Alex said, thinking. “It’s a gift from a friend?”

“Alex Manes has a friend? Since when.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I have a roommate.”

“Your brother doesn’t count. Not as a roommate, not as a human. Maybe some kind of invertebrate, if I’m feeling generous.”

Alex had to hold back his snort, keeping his voice quiet enough he hoped it wouldn’t be picked-up by any microphones: “I’m not living with Flint anymore.”

She paused, setting the basket she was holding on the lid of the white washer.

“You got out?”

If Alex didn’t know any better, he would have thought she sounded choked-up. It must be the heat: “I’ve been staying with Kyle -- Dr Valenti.”

She worked her jaw. “You’re paying rent?”

Alex shook his head. “He hasn’t asked me to. But I’m thinking of finding a place of my own.”

The granite line of her mouth softened a tiny bit; more like sandstone now: “Come crow to me when you’ve got a lease -- or better yet, a mortgage. Then you’ll be a real boy.”

“What about a plant?”

“Alex Manes, you did _not_ bring agricultural materials back? What is it --”

And she dove into the recently delivered go box with her elbow-length welder’s gloves, spelunking with major violence.

Alex knew better than to try to hide: “It’s in the back of the jeans pocket -- it’s just an olive, Ms Shapiro. From Baghdad. I wanted to try to grow a tree.”

She continued rummaging until she found it, pulling the bruised green olive out of his jeans pocket with two careful fingers.

She glared at it, and then at him.

“I’m checking the books.”

Patrice had a massive, up-to-date reference book collection on the back wall of the laundry, detailing every infectious disease, every agricultural pest, every kind of weird radiation and chemical spill Time Agents might come into contact with. She started flipping through the agricultural pest reference O-Q.

She read found the article for olives and read it, eyebrows drawn.

She turned to glower at Alex: “I can let you keep the pit -- _if_ you wash it first.”

“No problem, ma’am,” Alex said, rolling up his sleeves.

He started running the hot water in the scrubbing sink under her watchful eye. He separated the pit from the flesh, dropping the watery green skin and pulp into a medical waste box that would go to the incinerator. Then he carefully scrubbed the pit.

“Fine,” she said at his elbow.

Then she took a breath, speaking low under the roar of the dryer: “I had to burn everything you came back with from your last mission. That much blood, I didn’t think you’d be coming back here again.”

He shrugged one shoulder, slipping the pit into his back pocket. “I’m hard to kill, you know that.”

She shook her head: “You need to get yourself a girlfriend. Maybe with someone to lose, you’d care more about getting hurt.”

And Alex felt a chill through him, an aching cold in the smothering heat of that room. He felt an answering pingback from Michael, querying and comforting all at once.

In a near whisper he said: “What if I wanted a boyfriend instead?”

“Boyfriend, girlfriend, loveperson, I don’t care. I’m just tired of being the only damn person in this forsaken place who notices how much blood you lose.”

“Oh,” Alex said, glancing over at her. He wondered if Michael was feeling a storm surge of relief from him; he didn’t know how he couldn’t be, he could hardly speak through it. “Ok.”

In a loud, carrying voice she huffed: “Don’t think this means I’m going to let you jump the queue, you’ll get your kit back tomorrow afternoon at _the_ _earliest_. Now get out of my laundry room, you’re not supposed to be here anyways.

“You’re right, Ms Shapiro, I’m sorry.”

Alex turned to her, biting his tongue for a moment. She turned to look up at him. He sort of moved his arms out to the side a little, like he’d seen Kyle do before Liz hugged him. Her eyes flared with surprise a little, but not a second later, he was getting folded into her considerable bulk, muscled arms tight around his shoulders, squeezing him until he had to draw breath against the feeling of her. It felt -- warm. Held. Comforted.

“You’re a good boy, Alex,” she said gruffly. Then she let him go. “Now, skedaddle. I’ve got more than enough work to do without coddling men who can’t be bothered to empty their own pockets.”

He skedaddled.

\--

Standing in the mid-morning sunshine, leaning back against the concrete wall of the Time Agency parking lot, Alex Googled “how to grow a plant” on his personal phone. From what he could find, plants needed sun, water, and dirt. It didn’t seem like olive trees needed special dirt. He found a place called Ace Hardware in Roswell and memorized the route. He figured he could get a small pot, a small bag of dirt, and either put them in his backpack or, like, carry them in his arms on the way to Kyle’s place.

He was beginning to see the less life-threatening downsides to riding a cherry red motorcycle to work.

On a whim, before getting onto his bike, he searched for how to watch Disney movies. 

Several minutes later, he discovered that this process seemed far more complicated than he had imagined.

He finally pulled out his credit card and subscribed to Netflix. It seemed like Netflix had _Lilo and Stitch_ as well as something called _Moana_. Michael hadn’t mentioned that one, but the characters looked indigenous, maybe Pacific Islander, so Alex figured he would either love it, hate it, or at least have something to tell Michael about it the next time he saw him.

He felt suddenly bad -- a deep, strange guilt -- about forgetting to watch a Disney movie before the last trip. He tried to convince himself Michael hadn’t minded; he hadn’t even said anything.

But in 10 years of seeing Michael, he’d never asked for something and then had Alex forget. It was just Flint had sent him on a mission right away, and there’d been so much fear and chaos that day.

_That's no excuse._

He’d failed after making a promise. So, to make-up for it, he would not only make sure this olive grew into a healthy tree, he would watch _two_ movies. Maybe even more.

He wanted to make sure Michael knew he still kept his promises. That he was worth his time.

Suddenly, trickling across his skin from the handprints, came a feeling of -- concern. Like Michael had been feeling his guilt spiral and was trying to send back a feeling like a question.

The feeling of concern pulsed again and Alex hid a small smile, thinking the warmest thoughts he could, about the hug from Ms Shapiro, about how glad he was to have a way to get around town on his own. The feeling of concern eased, turning to something like fondness, like pride. Like maybe he got that Alex had dark moments sometimes and was glad he’d snapped himself out of it.

_That’s reading too much into some handprints. Get it together, Airman._

Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on the warm, floating feeling Michael was sending him. He focused, trying to _pull_ for a feeling, not just _push_ one -- he was thinking of this connection as being like one of those tin-can telephones, where you could hear the garbled approximation of a human voice if you held the line taut enough -- he tried to call back along it, see what Michael was feeling. But he couldn’t, he could just feel that floating kindness. _Probably need more practice,_ he thought. Well, he’d have at least 4 more days.

He rode that feeling all the way to the hardware store, through picking out a small bag of dirt, and a small blue pot, and a little red watering can. Swiping his credit card at checkout, he saw a bright yellow sign: “Key copies made here.”

He pulled out his phone and texted Kyle: “I’ll trade you a copy of my bike key for a copy of your apartment key.”

> **Kyle** : ??
> 
> **Kyle** : I totally did not realize I hadn’t given you a key. I’m so sorry. Are you at the apartment now? I can come and let you in, I’m so sorry
> 
> **Alex** : I’m at the Hardware store, I could come to you, get the key, make a copy, then bring yours back to you?
> 
> **Kyle** : Is that ok? I don’t want to mess with your day.
> 
> **Alex** : No problem

Alex remembered where the Sheriff’s station was in downtown Roswell from his long, panicked run with Michael in 2000; it was only a few blocks from the hardware store. He checked the directions on his phone: a 10 minute walk.

> **Alex** : I’ll be there in 10?
> 
> **Kyle** : Perfect. I’ll save you a muffin.
> 
> **Kyle** : Or, like, some fruit. I guess.

Alex asked the young woman at the check-out counter if he could keep his purchases behind the counter. She agreed and flashed him a smile which he haltingly returned.

The walk over was nice enough; it was strange, he hadn’t had this much unstructured time outside of missions in -- it must have been years. He glanced down a side street, and realized he could just, wander down it. See what there was to be seen. Wander into a shop, get something to eat, and no one -- not that no one would notice. Not that no one would care. But it was _nobody’s business but his_. Kyle would wonder why he hadn’t arrived when he said he would, but that -- it felt less like a tether and more like a welcome.

Alex stayed on the most efficient route his phone gave him, but kept an eye out, seeing if there was something he’d like to see on his way back.

The Sheriff's station looked the same in 2018 as it did in 2000; maybe a new coat of paint, maybe a little less gold leaf. He pushed through the brass-framed doors he’d seen Michael run to, walking into a cool tiled entryway and then through much more normal office doors into the bullpen. There were three messy desks and two big cages in the back of the room; both empty.

A tall, blond sheriff’s deputy was at her computer. She met Alex’s eyes and nodded.

He asked: “I’m looking for Kyle Valenti?”

“He’s in the back.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, glancing at the two cages. “Hey, I don’t know if this is a violation of privacy, but -- is there another jail in this county?”

She frowned a little. “Sure, the big one down by the festival grounds,” she jerked her head at the cages. “That’s just the drunk tank.”

“Got it,” Alex said. He started to head to the back, and something stopped him. “Hey, do you know, was there a guy here, black hat, cowboy manners?”

She shook her head. “That describes a lot of guys around here. Do you know what he looks like?”

Alex thought -- _low voice, soft fingers on my wrist, friends with people I like_ \-- and he said: “Sorry, he’s a regular at Crashdown and I haven’t seen him lately.”

“Can’t help you. You could ask the Sheriff --”

“No, it’s ok. He doesn’t know me, that would be overstepping. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem.”

Alex headed to the back where Kyle was happily munching on a muffin while the Sheriff was working her way through a plate of eggs with chili sauce Christmas style.

“Morning, Alex.” Michelle said.

“Morning, Sheriff.”

“Here you go,” Kyle said, holding up a brass key. Alex slipped it into his empty back pocket.

“Want something to eat? We found an apple.” He pointed to a slightly sad looking Red Delicious, slouched against a take-out bag from Crashdown.

“I’m good, thanks though.” He paused, glancing at Michelle. He bulled through: “Kyle, do you have Rosa’s number? I wanted to invite her and Liz to a movie night, and you too of course, tonight, if that works?”

“Sure,” Kyle said easily, and then Michelle handed over her phone: “Here you go.” Alex copied it down into his phone and sent a quick text.

Michelle’s voice was curious when she asked: “What’s the movie night?”

“Oh,” Alex said, flushing a little, “I promised a friend I’d watch some of the movies I missed growing up, how I did. So it’s kid stuff.”

“Like?”

“I was thinking _Moana_ and _Lilo and Stitch_?”

She smiled: “Good choices. Lin Manuel Miranda’s a genius.”

Kyle spoke in an undertone: “He’s the composer for some of the songs in _Moana_. Also, _Hamilton_. It’s amazing, if you haven’t heard it yet.”

“I haven’t. But thanks for the recommendation, Michelle.”

“Anytime, Alex.” Her voice was quiet, thoughtful.

He turned back to Kyle: “See you at dinner then?”

“Yep, I’m heading back to work on the garage some more this afternoon.”

“ _Yes,_ he _is_ ,” Michelle said severely. “ _Someone_ has 15 years of football trophies to say goodbye to.”

“Participation trophies are handed out by parents, for parents, they have nothing to do with --”

And Alex sidled out of the room before they could start shouting.

\--

Making the new key had taken about 10 minutes, during which time the nice checkout clerk had talked him into buying _The New Western Garden Book by Sunset_ with the promise it would tell him how to grow any kind of plant he might want to west of the Rockies and a keychain with a little alien popping its head out of a flying saucer and smirking.

He rode home with all his purchases carefully packed into his backpack, then went to the fully accessible bathtub to pour the dirt into the pot and carefully press the olive pit into the center of it. Then he filled up the watering can from the tub spout and carefully watered it.

He immediately saw the problem: the water was trickling brown out of the bottom of the pot.

He felt a flutter of irritation and then something like humor filtered back through his connection to Michael. _Glad to know_ _someone_ _finds me entertaining_ , he thought grumpily. As he rifled through the kitchen, the feeling moved from humor to that same kind, bubbling warmth and he found himself talking aloud:

“Do you think Kyle would mind if I used this plate? It’s at the bottom of the pile and it looks like he never uses it. But it’s got a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on it, maybe it’s special. Maybe one of the plain plates? But then, what if he doesn’t want me getting his stuff dirty?”

He could imagine a Michael in 2018 replying with a smirk: _I really don’t think Valenti is going to give a fuck. He’ll think it’s cool you’re growing a plant_.

Alex picked one of the plain plates, carefully set the pot on it, and watched to make sure the water didn’t overflow. Then he found a nice, sunny spot under the living room window, sealed the bag of dirt with a binder clip from the kitchen stuff drawer, and found another plate to keep the full watering can on.

After cleaning out the tub with the detachable shower-head, he realized he could just, take a shower. Because he wanted to. Kyle wouldn’t be home for hours.

Most of the showers he’d had growing-up had been in the big shared showers everyone used in war zones. On the rare occasions he’d had a single, there’d always been _someone_ waiting, complaining about the hot water, _something._

But he had hours and hours here, nothing but books and time and a hot water heater that wouldn’t quit. He didn’t have a next mission to prep for, and the plant wouldn’t need water until tomorrow at least.

On a whim, he ran a bath, heading to his room to get his crutches while it heated up.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one; he’d dunked himself in oceans and lakes and underground caves, been in pools and monsoons and tumbled like a rocket on re-entry through waves the sizes of buildings, but a quiet bath in a locked room wasn’t something he had a lot of experience with.

He got undressed, putting his clothes and prosthetic on the high white countertop. He thought about other things he could do, with no one else in the apartment and hours to himself, but with the connection to Michael, he didn’t want to make it weird. So he contented himself with running the water hot and clear, letting the steam build up, and then settling into the too-hot water. He’d left his phone on one of Kyle’s white towels, so after swishing his hands through the water some, he opened it up and downloaded the _Hamilton_ soundtrack.

Two hours later, he sent Kyle a text:

> **Alex** : How did I not know musicals could be like this?
> 
> **Kyle** : Because your Dad is the kind of guy who would have fought for the British if he could have? Also, he has no culture.

Alex read that, sitting in his towel on his bed. He’d gotten out of the bath at “Burn” and then just kind of, gotten stuck, after “Blow Us All Away.”

> **Alex** : Do you think Hamilton would have raised Phillip that way if he knew it would get him killed?
> 
> **Kyle** : No, I don’t think he would have. Because he’s a good father. Not everyone gets that. Alexander didn’t. But he raised himself to be a good man.
> 
> **Alex** : Sort of. He was also kind of a monarchist and an asshole.
> 
> **Kyle** : Hey, you can be a good person and an asshole. It’s a big world. There’s a lot of ways to be.
> 
> **Alex** : Are all musicals like this?
> 
> **Kyle** : No, Hamilton is special. Spring Awakening, too. Jesus Christ Superstar, if that’s your jam. Rosa knows a lot about them if you’d like more recommendations.
> 
> **Alex** : Thanks. Still on for dinner and movies?
> 
> **Kyle** : Absolutely.

After a lot of poking, Alex had figured out how to loop songs. He set his alarm for 15 minutes before when Rosa was supposed to arrive, made sure his door was locked, sat back, and let “Burn” keep playing:

> _“Be careful with that one, love_ _  
> __He will do what it takes to survive.”_ _  
> __You and your words flooded my senses_   
> Your sentences left me defenseless

It felt, wrenching. The song. The betrayal inherent in it. The sickness of loving someone who hurt you so callously. And not being able to stop. Alex was beyond grateful nobody -- not Kyle, not Michael -- had asked if he loved his father. He had no idea how someone like Kyle, who could smile at his Mom and tease with her, could possibly understand. How overwhelming someone could be and how hard it was to build yourself back up again. The low hum of comfort from Michael was still there, not like he was trying to jolly him out of this mood, but like he was, waiting. Watching. Holding for him.

And as these things always did, he started to wonder if _he_ was someone who someone else could sing this song about, who could make someone wish they could erase themselves. The way he’d wanted to erase himself, oh, so many, many times.

But the song hooked him back in. Because, at the end, this wasn’t a song about mourning. It wasn’t a song about revenge. The more he listened, the more he realized it was a song about separation. About distance. About doing the hard, ugly work of ripping yourself away from something that has built itself around you, that you’ve built yourself around, and realizing you don’t have a lot left, but what you have is _yours_.

Each new replay of the song, that felt clearer and clearer. That it _was_ possible to burn connections, even those as fundamental as the one Eliza and Hamilton shared. One that had looked so perfect, been so supported from the outside.

By the time the alarm went off, Alex could sing almost the entire song from heart. As he got his prosthetic back on, he heard himself humming: _“I hope that you burn.”_

\--

The Disney movies were delightful and bright. Rosa had brought popcorn and Liz and chocolate; Kyle had brought candy and soda and pizza. Alex figured out how to get his own Netflix account on the TV screen. They all piled onto the couch, Rosa kicking her ankles over Alex’s lap with only a quick check to make sure it was ok. She flopped against Liz with no such hesitation.

Alex could see immediately what Michael loved about Stitch and began to play on his phone, trying to figure out where he could get something a 19-year-old might like that was Stitch-related before his next mission. Between the movies, he and Rosa brainstormed about getting a gift for _“Alex’s teenager friend, and no it’s not weird,”_ and settled on a Stitch lapel pin. The same pin website sold rainbow flag pins and bi-pride flag pins, and Alex added one of each to his cart before checking out; they’d be there in two days.

 _Moana_ was -- a lot. The last scene, the subversion of violence as a way to solve problems. The whole conversation about names and history and hiding. It was -- Alex was glad he would be able to watch it again on his own, to think it through some more.

Rosa and Liz helped clean up, then hugged him on their way out the door and promised to see him at Crashdown for breakfast this week.

Kyle was getting the dishwasher going when he said: “I was surprised you picked _Moana_ ,” he said. Alex was folding the blankets they’d used as the sun set and the desert temperature dropped.

“Why?” 

“Well, you can’t talk about it with Michael -- it’s going to be 2009 for him when you see him next. And you don’t tell him about his future.”

“Oh,” Alex said, glancing at the Netflix summary: Released 2016. “That explains why I didn’t remember hearing it had come out.”

“What do you mean? I thought you hadn’t seen any Disney movies.”

“It’s not really possible to not know a Disney movie is coming out, even if you live the kind of life I was leading. But 2016,” he paused, his voice getting quiet even as his emotions swirled and shifted inside him. He felt a brush against his connection with Michael, sleepy and soft. He said: “That’s the year my Mom died. I -- I don’t remember a lot of that year.”

“Oh,” Kyle said. “I’m sorry Alex. I didn’t see you at the funeral and you didn’t seem any different, I hadn’t thought it had hit you that hard. Flint didn’t even take a day off.”

Alex blinked hard, moving the Mescalero blanket so it was on top and laid evenly across the others. “I don’t get days off, not that kind. And they sent me on a mission the day of the funeral after I said I was going.”

“That’s -- that’s _awful_.” He paused, “You don’t have to answer, but have you ever thought about it? Sending her a letter on one of your trips, like you did for Michael. Just telling her -- just don’t get in the car. Just don’t go anywhere that day.”

Alex's voice was distance: “Just about every day for the first year. It’s down to once a week now. But,” Alex closed his eyes, smoothing his hands on the blanket, “She told me what she thought of time travel. A lot of times. She said she wanted to live her life in one order. That she wanted no special favors from the Time Agency or anyone affiliated with it.” He looked at Kyle, the livingroom glimmering at the edges. “I know my mother, Kyle. And as much as it hurts, I know she wouldn’t want me splitting her futures.”

“And do you feel that way?”

“Hmm?”

“If you could know something about your future, something you could only know because of time travel, would you want to know it?”

Alex frowned: “We can’t travel to the future, Kyle.”

“Say you could.”

Alex was shaking his head: “I don’t think so. It would be tempting, of course it would be tempting, but I -- I want to do my best with the best information I have in front of me.”

“Even if it could help someone else, save someone --”

“Where is this coming from?” Alex snapped, voice rising as Kyle turned to him with surprise, “You’ve spent weeks trying to convince me to stop sacrificing myself for the greater good, that it’s good for me to have value on my own, for my life to have value aside from my ability to serve others, but the first time I push back, say I want something, something as simple as living myself unburdened by others’ vision of the future, you’re what -- _guilt tripping me_?” He was shaking, mind racing. He had enough money for a hotel, if Kyle kicked him out. He would probably let him go back to his room to get the silver ball and he probably wouldn’t throw away the olive tree until Alex had a place he could keep it --

“Fuck, I’m sorry Alex. I’m sorry, you’re right. You have every right to want to live your life in one order. You have every right to want to not have your timeline fucked with any more than it already has. I’m really sorry. That was shitty of me.”

Alex blinked. “You’re -- you’re not kicking me out?”

“ _What?_ ”

“I -- I yelled at you. You’re letting me stay here for free, and feeding me, and letting me hangout with your friends and I just _yelled_ at you --”

Kyle raised his hands: “Alex, you got mad. It’s -- it’s not the end of the world. It’s not even really a fight. You just set a boundary with me, and when I pushed it in a not-ok way, you pushed back. That’s all -- that’s _really, really_ normal. _Really, really_ ok. And I’m not ‘letting’ you hangout with my friends, they’re your friends too. I sure as shit don’t have any matching tattoos with Rosa. And Liz adores you. She’s been taking morning shifts for two weeks just to hangout with you. Her boyfriend is big time grumpy about it. And if you want to pay rent or be on the lease, no big. You talked about getting your own place, so I figured things were fine how they are for now and we’d talk about it eventually.”

“Oh,” Alex said, taking that in. “Um, I don’t think I need to be on the lease. I -- I don’t have a real timeline, but I --” _3 weeks, just until we’re in the same timeline,_ something in his brain hummed. “Like, a month or two?”

Kyle nodded: “It’s no trial having you here. I like talking, I like cooking with you; you’re a good friend, Alex.”

Alex looked down, watching his fingers trace on the blanket. “So,” he said, trying to reorient the conversation, “if I was going to watch one more Disney movie that Michael’s probably seen by 2009, what would you recommend?”

“Hmm, did Michael have any suggestions?”

“Umm, _Beauty and the Beast_ and _Mulan_.”

“Both good choices,” Kyle said, voice careful. “So, did you tell him about Dr Guerin?”

Alex closed his eyes. “I slipped when I realized who he was, mentioned he looked like someone I met in Doha. He’s already planning to study abroad there for a semester to make sure it happens, which is _exactly_ what I am trying to avoid, him shaping his future to fit my past. I want him whole and himself -- it’s why I don’t even know his last name.”

“His -- _what?_ ”

Alex knelt beside the pot of dirt, to check if it had dried out yet; still damp.

“I mean, I know he was ‘Michael Ridley’ in 1998. And he called himself ‘Dr Guerin’ in 2010, but I never saw his ID or anything, and he wasn’t in the alumnae and alumni database for Carnegie Mellon under that name.”

“So -- how are you going to find him? Because you _do_ want to find him, when this whole annual-visitation-thing has you two caught up with each other?”

Alex’s smile felt sad and hopeful: “Like I said, it’s about consent. If he tells me his name, if he wants to see me when he’s 28, he knows absolutely everything he needs to find me. He could knock on that door right now. And if he gives me any part of that, any hint he wants me to find him, then I will once we're on the same page. Of _course_ I will. But if I had to guess, he hasn't come because he wants me to know what he knows, about me, about us. So I’m ok with how it is right now. I see him for 1000 seconds a year, get to hangout with someone who’s brave and kind and smart and hardworking and figuring out his place in the world. That’s enough, more than enough, for me.”

Kyle’s face was telling a big, complex story, but Alex had no idea how to read it.

In a low voice he said: “For what it’s worth, and I know it’s a violation of protocol, but I told Michael he could tell Marie and Jared they were in Caulfield, in my timeline. I told him I’m in no position to tell him what the right thing to do, but he should ask if they wanted to know. If he ever asks me, I’ll tell him the same thing I told you, the same thing my mother told me.” He gave Kyle a half-smile before levering himself to his feet: “I’d rather find out my future in my own time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The polygamous laundry story is true and it’s from Daughter of the Saints, which is about American religious fundmentality polygamy. I read it in preparation for goiing to live in Qatar, where Islamic polygamy is legal. The realities on FLDS compounds are as far from the dynamics of a healthy polycule as they are from how most LDS families run themselves. They are mostly excuses for patriarchy run wild, which becomes evident when the whims of the patriarch lead to the women in the house doing 17 loads of laundry a day.
> 
> Also, Patrice is based off of the laundry women my Mom worked with in a Kibbutz in Israel in the ‘70s. Muscles for days, not chit-chatting, AK-47s in the broom closet.
> 
> Ok, third (apparently I have a lot of laundry feelings). When I was little, my Mom would put my baby basket in the laundry room and the dryer would put me to sleep. It became nearly Pavlovian -- she’d put me in there, I’d pass out. I hadn’t realized this training had stuck until I was in college, sitting in the laundry room (since people tended to take each other’s unguarded laundry out and leave it in a wet heap on the dirty floor), and caught myself passing out to the gentle lullaby of the dryers. I still love laundrymats. Instant relaxation.
> 
> Here's the song Alex listens to on a loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0k0FJrY4a8


	20. just close my eyes, oh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ve been spiraling closer and closer to the part of the region that a lot of people know a lot more about than I do. This chapter contains the first real mention of Israel and Palestine. Eventually, Alex is going to go into Gaza for a mission. I wanted to say, before we get into that part of the story, that I know it can be really painful for people in the region to read stories about their countries that are written by people who don’t live there full time, but who feel some kind of ownership over them. For what it’s worth, I have Israeli and Palestinian friends, I speak Arabic, I have 4 Jewish aunts, my mother worked in a Kibbutz in the ‘70s, and I will absolutely both do my best to write Alex seeing what I personally saw and I know I will mess up and upset people. That’s the nature of writing about Israel and Palestine. So, if you’d like to skip that chapter, I’ll note it at the top. If you’re ramping up to say anti-Semitic or anti-Palestinain things, you can please stop reading this story and go and think about your life. If you want to chat about politics in the region, my inbox is open, but I also have limited spoons and if I use them up re-litigating the Peel Commission then the chapters here will be a bit slower. Make your choices. That’s that on that.

Alex opened his eyes in the high mountains of Lebanon, thick winter coat wrapped around his shoulders, two pride pins and a little enamel alien sewn into the lining of it. He was hip-deep in snow, right off the side of a highway arcing and curving between the snow-drenched cedars that held the limestone mountainside up. He looked up -- and up and up -- into a tree that must have been 3000 years old, the thick-spice smell of it surrounding him. There was a rush of a truck on the highway -- he remembered this trip. 2006. His father had gotten a CIA fixer to drive them from southern Lebanon up through Syria and into Turkey, all the way to Istanbul, paralleling the Mediterranean the entire way, though of course never stopping to touch its wine-dark waters.

Alex could see the back of a little cedar-wood pop-up stand beside the road, a little souvenir shop. He had a few hours to get his bearings and get a ride to Khalil Gibran’s house, then into the Qadisha valley to the Monastery of Qozhaya. He couldn’t feel Michael, just like he hadn’t been able to in Baghdad.

He missed the warmth those handprints had brought him.

Flint had doubled-up this mission with two targets, though Alex and Kyle had both agreed neither target was likely to be dangerous. Not that there was much scary about northern Lebanon in August 2006, particularly in these still and silent mountains. In the south, Israel was firing US-made missiles into the suburbs of Beirut. That conflict would end with 1,191 Lebanese people and 160 Israeli people dead.

But Alex was here about trees and trash, not the conflict at the southern border.

Both missions were like the one in Petra -- funding an initiative that, given time, could reshape the region. First came trees: the cedars of Lebanon were the emblem on the flag, had for millenia anchored this region’s cool climate, and were being cut-down as aggressively as old growth trees in the Pacific Northwest had been in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Just like in Oregon and Washington, there were Lebanese activists working to protect existing stands of cedars and provide them the space to regrow. The Time Analysts had identified one activist who wanted to institute something like the US's Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s -- paid work for the hundreds of thousands of underemployed and underemployed Lebanese men, women, and people, building trails, protecting forests, and growing the green spaces of the country.

Second came trash: since the 1997 closure of the major garbage dump in Beirut, trash collection, storage, burning, and anything having to do with recycling had been chaotic. The Time Analysts had no idea how to get people to produce less trash in Roswell, much less Lebanon, but they had identified a young scientist who had built an in-home trash compactor, which would allow the government to tax based on the weight of disposed goods. It turned out that rich people threw away more stuff in Lebanon, since they bought more packaged food -- unlike in the United States, where packaged food was often the most affordable food. So it was a progressive tax, across all of the four major religious groups.

Alex had a quarter million US dollars in Lebanese lira for each of his targets, who knew they were meeting him to get it -- his job was now to get to them.

Alex walked over to the souvenir seller, greeting him in Levantine Arabic.

The man smiled: “You get lost?”

Alex shook his head: “My group dropped me off up-mountain; I wanted to go on a day trip to Khalil Gibran’s house, the Monastery of Qozhaya. Do you know anyone who would be willing to drive for the day? I’m happy to pay a fair price.”

The man rolled his eyes at tourist antics, but he got on his flip-phone. Alex looked over the carved cedar crafts. There were trinkets, lots of Christmas ornaments with the Lebanese cedar tree -- and then what he was looking for. A small box, about the size of a tissue box, the bottom carved from three intersecting colors of wood, with dovetail nailless joints. What drew Alex's trailer fingers though was the puzzle lid, interlocking pieces of wood that kept it locked until he found the right piece to remove. As the other man texted, Alex played with it, wiggling different parts until he found the small slip of wood that, once removed, allowed him to take the rest of the puzzle apart.

“How much is this?”

The man glanced at him, clocking his worn-out two-thirds-length winter coat, his military haircut.

“60000 lira,” he said.

That was about the cost of a night’s stay in a private room in Beirut.

“Hmm,” Alex said, putting the puzzle back together. “I was thinking more like 25,000.”

Alex could see him making the calculations in his head as he looked down at his phone. Alex loved this moment, because it was so different for him than it was for his father. The Colonel -- on the rare occasion he would deign to speak to people he insisted on calling “foreign nationals” even when _he_ was, in fact, _the foreigner_ \-- exclusively spoke English and tried to scream and intimidate them into lowering their prices. It would work, sometimes, but it was sheer misery for Alex and everyone else involved.

Alex had found speaking the language was like a downpayment on the relationship. He would never speak better Arabic than people here spoke English or French, but that he’d spent the time, and the obvious years of effort, meant he often got to skip an entire level of tourist bullshit. It also made negotiation that much more fun.

“40,000,” the man said, “Hand carved, from the very cedars of Lebanon. You’ll get this nowhere else in the world. It’s for your wife?”

“A friend,” Alex said. “How about 35,000?”

The man looked at him for long moments, then he nodded. Alex handed over the money.

“Would you like some coffee? My cousin will be here in about 10 minutes and it’s chilly out there.” The man said as he bundled up Alex’s new box, packing it painstakingly in bubble-wrap. Nothing airport security couldn’t open easily, since he knew Alex would need to be taking it home through security systems that were often suspicious of too much Arabic on one’s passport.

“I’d love that, thank you,” Alex said. 

They sat in the small booth, the sound of the wind in the massive cedars around them, perched on bar stools to keep the snow on the ground from soaking into their boots.

“I’m Alex,” he said.

“Khalid,” he said. “I’ve owned this shop for 5 years. I like it up here. It’s quiet.”

“It’s beautiful here. We don’t have trees like this where I come from.”

“No?”

“I come from a low red desert, things smell like sage and dust there.”

“Your friend, he lives there too?”

“No, another city in the United States. A greener one. For now, I think he might move back.”

The man gestured to the box. “You can use it for what you want, but I built that for a wedding covenant -- a khuthuba or a contract or vows -- it’s the right size for A4 paper, folded in three parts. I hope your friend uses it for something good.”

“I know he will,” Alex said, watching as a 1980s-era car swerved and swung along the mountain passes towards them. “He’s a good man.”

“Good. I’m glad to know it will have a safe home in America.”

“Have you ever been?”

The man gave him a quirked smile: “I have a cousin in Dearborn, I’ve seen her twice. When there were cheap flights.”

“I saw some good Turkish Airways flights.”

“Yeah, or Egyptian Air.”

“You mean ‘Insha’allah Air’?”

The man snickered: “Where’d you study Arabic?”

The car pulled to the curb, a young man about Alex’s age rolling down the window, synth-pop blaring out the snow-flecked windows.

“All over the place,” Alex said, easing himself down onto the snow packed ground, “I didn’t really have a home for a long time. Just moved around.”

“That’s a hard way to live.”

“It’s what I had to do to survive.” Alex said, then he caught himself and smiled. “But things are better now.”

“I’m glad -- ma salama.”

“Ma salama,” Alex said, raising his hand in a wave.

Khalid’s cousin wanted to practice his English on Alex, so they chatted about Khalil Gibran and Manchester United and Barcelona. Unlike the approach with Tara Hedayati, each of Alex’s targets had gotten letters from the Time Agency’s stalking horse foundation, the Habemus Tempus Institute, asking them to meet their representative in Lebanon on this date, time, and in the place where Alex would find them. He would take them through an interview, to make it feel real, then give them the cash.

They pulled up outside of Khalil Gibran’s house -- it was humble in shape and wild in color, square cedar pillars holding up a tile roof with bright reds, yellows and blues everywhere the eye could see. Alex asked Khalid’s cousin he'd be about an hour and he got out, pulling himself up from the low seat by the roof as a little paint flaked away into his palm. Alex took a moment to read the sign at the front of the home -- Khalil Gibran's history as a writer, poet, and activist -- and he felt a bump against his ankle. He looked down, and smiling up at him was a little grey cat. Alex knelt, offering his knuckles for her to smell -- she immediately swiped his claws across the back of his hand, and he only got away with a mild scrape because of his reflexes. He stood-up and she twirled around his ankles again, all kitty smiles.

He headed inside, ducking through the low doorways until he found his first target.

He met Khalid’s cousin outside an hour later and $250,000 USD lighter.

“Khalid let you know I was hoping to go to the Qozhaya Monastery?”

He nodded, and they were off.

The Qadisha Valley was impossibly beautiful. Rivers after waterfalls after streams after water soaked gorges rippled across the lush valley. Centuries of terraced vineyards made the slopes appear pixellated. Limestone outcroppings dotted the hillside, which explained the dark, famous caves of this valley. Alex remembered vaguely from a guide he’d read that sedimentary rock made for great caves, since water flowed more easily through it. He smiled a little -- limestone came from the same kinds of creatures that had built the El Capitan reef. It was always a relief to know he was among familiar rocks, even if their environment was much more conducive to life right now.

Alex's driver slipped some details about the scenery into the football chatter: "For a long time, this valley had had one of the most famous concentrations of monasteries in the world. Most were Maronite, but there are a huge range. Many had begun with religious men living in caves, who then built houses. The men who lived in those houses built churches, the men who worshipped in those churches built monasteries."

The Qozhaya Monastery was large, with tall, straight walls and room for hundreds of monks. The Maronite Christians could trace its history back to a 5th century cave -- the hermitage of St Anthony. According to Alex’s driver, the saint had healed people afflicted with demons by chaining them up in the cave. Alex had tried to keep his face blank, but the idea of someone like Rosa being trapped and scared, someone with mental health challenges, or the kind of behavioral issues Michael might have developed without the love and care he got, facing chains -- it was horrible.

They pulled through the thick honey-and-bone-colored stone gates, parking in the little lot that had probably originally been for horses.

“Another hour?” Alex checked. The man waved him away, keeping the windows up to keep the wind out and popping in a tape to his tape deck. It sounded a bit like something Michael might play.

Alex was a little early for his meeting, so he paid the fee and wandered into the entirely empty museum. It was dark and warm, built into and through the mountain, the outside temperature not changing much through the thick stone walls with their arrow-slit windows. The smell of cedar still clung to his clothing and Alex adjusted the weight of the backpack, feeling the box sitting low and heavy above the remaining cash.

In the corner of the museum a hulking black metal mass squatted. Alex approached, wondering if it was some kind of medieval weapon from the crusades -- but as he read the guide, he realized he had been wrong: "Woah," he whispered softly as he circled it.

It was the first ever printing press in the Middle East, built in 1584. It had been owned by the monastery for nearly half a millenia, preserved and protected here. He took a picture with his phone to show Michael later, feeling something warm and connected and just his under his skin.

He heard a movement behind him and turned to see a brown-robed monk. He was watching Alex carefully, and a quiet part of Alex sighed, realizing that this, too, was part of preserving history. Watching to make sure idiot Americans didn’t make-off with trophies.

He nodded to him and headed outside; he was slated to meet his target in the cave.

He headed down a short ramp paved in the same pale colors as made-up the rest of the building, everything square and straight -- except for the jagged hole right into the heart of the mountain beside him. Nothing about that fit the carefully-tended, perfectly straight lines of absolutely everything else, and for the first time since he arrived in Lebanon, he felt a real smile rising unobserved.

The cave was _weird_. There were the chains, the collars mentioned in the brochure; the thick, orange-yellow light of a dozen wax candles in the middle of the room provided the only light as the spare winter sunlight gave up inches inside the doorway.

Then there were the thousands and thousands of dripping stalactites forming their matching stalagmites on the floor. There were narrow, uneven steps carved into the rock to an upper tier of the cave, like holy stadium seating. Alex worked his way up the steps, placing his prosthetic carefully on the uneven ground, and across the stone platform, to find a waterfall of stone, the kind of thing that formed when stalactites didn’t have enough room to drip and so trickled down the steps.

A flash of light shone at him, and he glanced over, seeing nothing; again. This time, he caught it -- it was a single drop of water, flowing from the melting snow dozens of feet and dozens of years above. It had moved through the rock, picking up sediment, trailing down the pinky-sized stick of the stalactite, and flitting down onto a dollar-pancake sized flat of smooth, grey stone, what would one day be the upreaching stalagmite.

He thought about what it meant, for something to work for so long, to fight down through solid stone, only to drop, fast as any other falling thing, to form a bridge, a branch, that would one day be column strong enough to hold up this whole mountain. But for now, was simple a water droplet, falling in space.

“I’ve never seen them form before,” he said.

“It sure is something else,” came a voice behind him.

He turned and recognized his target from the briefing. He pulled his professional face on.

“Adla Ibrahim?”

“Captain Manes.” She said, holding out her hand. She wore a loosely-wrapped headscarf and a bright smile. “Would you mind speaking outside? I don’t wish to disturb the worshippers.”

Alex looked down to see a group of women kneeling in front of the candles. They must have come in while he was watching water fall.

“Of course.”

They walked out together and found a quiet bench. It was cool outside in the monastery, but with his thick jacket and her warm coat, they were comfortable for their interview. When they finished and he handed over the grant money, she gave him a small smile.

“You know what the name of your foundation means?”

“I do,” he said. “I think a Congressional aide made it up because they were feeling superior.”

“It’s strange how attached Americans are to Latin,” she said, “When it was never a spoken language in your country.”

“It’s like how all of our buildings are neoclassical -- it’s part of trying to tie our heritage to the Roman senate and the Athenian democracy.”

“All while the real Roman ruins are being bombed to pieces in Tyre -- in Sidon.” Alex didn't know what to say. She looked at him for a moment: “I shouldn’t push, you just gave me an impossible sum of money, but I will have to go back to my family in southern Lebanon. Tell me, what will your Habemus Tempus Institute do if I’m killed by the next missile that lands on Beirut?”

Alex looked at the tall, straight walls of the monastery, remembered he'd assumed the printing press was a weapon of war before he'd learned more. “I hope to God that you survive,” he said. “If I could stop every bomb from falling, I would.”

She frowned a little at him, then looked out at the vineyards. “I hope that’s true. Because you have more power to do it than I do.” She quirked a smile at him. “Though, when the bombs hit my neighborhood, at least there will be a lot less trash on the street now.”

She stood up, looking down at him: “Look, I appreciate the cash. But -- do you ever feel like your job, your whole Institute’s mission to ‘end wars early’ -- don’t you feel like it’s just going where there are already dead and find the bodies? Go to war zones, places already falling apart, and just, try to piece people back together? Don’t you wish you could _stop_ the wars _entirely_?”

He stayed seated, looking up at her. “I think everyone who lives through war wishes that.”

“Then why not do that?”

His smile was sad: “I don’t know how.”

“Better get to work on it then,” she said. “Ma salama, Captain Manes.”

“Ma salama,” he replied. He waited until she had gotten back to her car to find his driver.

The man had been listening in. In English he said, “You know, you can just say ‘Goodbye,’ or ‘au revoir,’ you don’t have to say ‘ma salama.’”

Alex nodded, laying his head against the cold window. “I know. But this is the only region in the world where people say ‘goodbye’ by saying ‘with peace’ or just, ‘peace.’” He took a deep breath. “I like to remember that that’s the goal. Do you mind taking me down to Beirut? I can pay for your room if you don’t want to stay overnight.”

“No problem -- and it’s fine, I need to visit my sister in Babliyeh. As long as you pay what you agreed with Khalid and cover gas, you can go anywhere.”

 _Except the places I need to go_ , he thought. He wished he could feel a warm pulse from Michael right now, wished he could feel his happy pride in him. 

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

\--

Alex slept the night in a quiet hotel that catered to visiting Japanese tourists. There was a full Japanese breakfast in the downstairs with its crooked-tiled floor and its plastic chairs. He appreciated it for the variety, even though he found himself missing making eggs with Kyle. 

He went back up to his room and carefully unpacked the cedar box with puzzle lid. With his replacement knife, he slipped open the lining of his winter jacket, with a quiet apology to Patrice, and pulled out the pins. He pulled some tissues from the box in the bathroom and made a little nest for them, wrapping them each carefully. Then he re-wrapped the box in its bubble-wrap and put it back into his bag. He re-applied his cover-up and then laid back to wait.

The 10 second warning blared around the room and Alex closed his eyes, holding tight to the bag. The timestream pulled him back, hard and fast, and he welcomed it.

\--

He opened his eyes to the now nearly-familiar loft. The spring sunlight was blazing through the large square windows, the tables filled with more complicated technologies, robots and an entire chemistry table and what looked like pigs’ hearts in jars.

_No Michael._

Alex stood -- he’d ended-up over by the filing cabinets again. He turned a full circle, the handprints tingling on his skin. The only part of the loft he couldn’t see was the sleeping area.

“Michael?”

There was an urgent sound and then a loud _thump._

“Alex!” He heard, and the clatter of a belt buckle. “Fuck, one sec, Alex! I’m glad you’re here! I’m just --”

And Michael hopped around the bookcase, pulling his jeans up around his hips as a t-shirt fluttered along hopefully behind him. Alex rolled his eyes and said: “You’ve got 985 seconds, you can take a minute to breathe.”

“No way,” Michael muttered, finally getting his foot free of the pantleg and sliding himself into his waiting shirt. Then he was striding over to Alex, wrapping him in a massive, long-armed hug. He smelled like sunlight and good sleep and dust after rain and Alex felt a pressure behind his eyes like he was going to cry.

He pulled back and looked up. He chuckled: “You’re -- taller than me.”

“Am I?” Michael looked at Alex and kind of began to hunch down. 

Alex put his hand on his shoulder: “Never pretend to be smaller -- not for me, not for anyone.”

Michael looked at him, a sneaky smile rising on his face: “Are we in a Wise Sage Mood? You know, you’re only 9 years older than me now.”

“Uh huh,” Alex said, swinging his backpack around to his front and unzipping it. “Does that mean you’re too old for presents?”

“Hard no. Give me presents,” Michael said, putting his hands out in front of him and making grabby hands.

Alex lifted out the box. He set it in Michael’s hands and gestured to the lid: “It’s a puzzle box, from Lebanon. It’s made of Lebanese cedar.”

Michael shook it gently before moving over to a table made from a door and two saw horses. Alex moved to the other side as Michael moved what looked to Alex like the prototype of Dr Guerin's robot snake aside. “There’s something inside?”

“Yeah, they’re from my time but nothing traceable.” Michael bent down to examine the box. He tried one swirling piece of wood holding the puzzle of the lid together, then another, finding them interlocked.

“Want a clue?” Alex offered.

“Never,” he said. 

As he fiddled with the box, Alex said: “I planted the olive.”

“Oh!” Michael said, lot looking up. He waved his hand. Three big brown pots, about as wide around as Alex could hold his arms, floated away from the window and up beside the table between them. They each had 3 bamboo sticks propping up a tree that was about a meter high.

“That’s gorgeous, mine hasn’t even sprouted yet.”

“It took these about 3 weeks, so don’t rush it.” Michael said, returning his attention to the puzzle.

Alex leaned across the table, watching what he was doing while continuing to give him updates: “I loved _Lilo and Stitch._ And the music in _Beauty and the Beast_ was just stunning.”

“Any other favorites?” Michael asked, trying another puzzle piece.

Alex bit his lip: “There’s one I think you’ll love, but it won’t come out for you for 7 more years.”

“Aww, no hints then?”

“No,” Alex said, voice even. “I mean, for me at least, I don’t like to know my future before I live it. I don’t like feeling like I don’t have a choice.”

“Me either,” Michael said, glancing up at him, “I’m glad you don’t tell me stuff about my future. It would be weird. Like you said, it matters to me, to make my own choices.”

“And I don’t ever look up your future,” Alex rushed out. “Not even, like little stuff. I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”

Michael tried another one of the puzzle pieces, and found it still locked. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t even know your last name, so I can’t really look you up.”

“You don’t -- oh, that’s dumb. Let’s see, in 1998 I was Michael Ridley. 1998 to 2000 I was Michael Shanta. 2000 - to present, Michael Truman. Some of my files have me down as Michael Guerin, since that’s the name of the trucker who found me; filing systems in the foster care system are whack. But I still like you not looking me up. It’s like we get to meet each other as equals.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, watching him work in the warm sunlight, feeling the words pulled out of him. “I wouldn’t want to know, if you knew more about my future than I did.”

“Doesn’t sound likely to come up,” Michael said, tapping the device gently glowing in his chest, “This is just for memory, no luck on travel yet.”

“You’re working on time travel?”

Michael met his eyes, raising his eyebrows. “Duh. All this robotics stuff is because it’s my Principal Investigator’s jam. She’s got DoD contracts like you wouldn’t believe, and as long as we make progress on those, I can use all of the fabrication equipment anytime I want to -- hah!”

He slipped open the tiny, inconspicuous shim that held the entire puzzle together, and it sagged apart in his hands.

He shot Alex a grin of such triumph, Alex wanted to wrap him up in another hug. He held off, watching as Michael unwrapped the pins.

He unwrapped the last of them, the Stitch pin, and paused for a long moment, looking down at them sparkling in the easy sunlight. Alex’s breath hitched -- maybe Michael had realized he was straight, maybe he’d changed his movie preferences -- and then Michael was around the table, his arms were around Alex's shoulders, just, squeezing and holding on.

Michael's breath was a little hard when he said: “I love them. People -- when you work on DoD contracts and visit family in Libya, everyone assumes stuff about you. Like you’re boring and conservative and a homophobe. And the only people I've dated long enough to introduce them to my labmates here have been women, so everyone always assumes I’m straight. I just --” he took a deep breath, pulling away from Alex. He floated the bi-flag and the Stitch pin over to his shirt, backings slipping down under the collar as he pinned them both right under his left collarbone. The rainbow flag pin sat in the middle of the white tissue paper, the brass lines between the colors twinkling.

“And this one,” he said, lifting it with his fingers, “I think this one is for you.”

Alex hesitated, and Michael faltered: “Or, unless -- is it not safe for you to be out at work?”

Alex frowned a little, looking at it. He figured most people kept a careful catalogue of every person they worked with, who made queerphobic jokes, who laughed at them, who said nothing, who said something. He could count on one hand the number of people he’d ever seen push back against queerphobic crap at the Time Agency, and if he left off Kyle and Ms Shapiro, he’d only have one of the nurses he’d seen shut Flint down five years ago, after a mission where Alex had been required to flirt with an ambassador’s son.

But he thought about Adla. And Khalid's cousin. And what bravery looked like. And he thought about what it would say to Michael if he couldn’t even wear a little pin into work.

“I’d be proud to wear it.”

“Awesome,” Michael said, floating the pin backing under Alex’s collar and pinning it just under his left clavicle. “Thank you again for these, they’re really cool. I’ll be the best dressed person in my lab, and that’s not, like, a high bar, but it’s still one I’ll be clearing.”

“I’ll be the first ever queer Time Agent who’s out, so I think I got you beat for historicity there,” Alex said, and there was something like a catch in his smile.

Michael frowned a little, turning back to the puzzle lid and beginning to reassemble it.

“Are you ok? I mean, when I first came over you looked -- kinda like you’d had a hard day.”

“Oh,” Alex said, _I’m fine,_ threatening to burst out of his lips. But Michael had literally pulled his skin back over his bones; he could see if he could tell him. “I, uh, had a hard mission.”

Michael’s eyes widened, scanning him up and down. “Are you injured again?”

“No, no, that’s -- that’s easier. For me.”

Michael let out a big breath. “Not for me. _Jesus_ , Alex. Don’t get hurt again, ok? It fucking kills me to see you hurt.”

Alex’s voice was small, cracked: “That’s -- that’s not really in my control.”

Michael tilted his head, eyes searching: “What do you mean?”

“Do you know what my job is?”

“You’re a Time Agent,” Michael replied, hands working on the box again, even as his attention was on Alex.

“Yeah, but do you know what we _do_.”

Michael took a breath. “Jared and Marie always said that you all go back, make changes to the timestream. Like, hindsight is 2020, and with the perspective of history, you can -- make things better for people. For some definition of ‘better’ and ‘people.’”

“Yeah,” Alex said, heart stuttering, breath hurting in his throat: “Other people pick the missions, methods, and main goals. I implement. Then I come back, and there’s this dog-and-pony show, where all the people I saved are there to clap for me, and oh, Michael, I _hate_ it,” and his voice was cracking, and he didn’t know what to _do_ , he hadn’t cried in front of someone else, in _years_ , he had _no idea how to do this_ , but the words were just pouring out as Michael stared at him over the workbench. “And I go and I do these missions and they tell me it will help, but I talked to this woman, this woman I gave all this money to, and she said my job was to go to places where there’s wars and find the bodies, to try to put them back together. And why couldn’t I just _end wars_ instead.”

“That’s too big for any one person to do, Alex --” Michael started but Alex was shaking his head, palms flat on the table, head down, trying to breathe and think and _speak_.

“But not too big for something like the Time Agency. Like, we have _so much money_. So many people. But I’m afraid, I’m scared to _fucking_ death, that the reason we don’t end wars _is because we don’t want to_.” And it felt like grabbing a shard of glass out of his chest and pulling it out, and he was bleeding, but at least he could _breathe_. “And I think it’s because men like my father ran it. Ran all of it. For so long. And so they sold us ‘shorter wars’ as a fix but, _people still die in short wars_ and --”

“Alex,” Michael said and he leaned right across the table, hands going Alex’s wrists, grip warm and firm. “Alex,” he repeated. “Where are you?”

“What?”

“Where are you, right now?”

“I’m,” Alex looked around. “In your flat. In 2009.”

“Ok, good,” Michael said. “And who am I?”

“Michael -- Michael Truman. Soon to Dr Truman.”

Michael quirked a grin at him. “Just another six months. And who are you?”

“Alex.” He took a breath, this one actually making it all the way into his lungs. “I’m Alex.”

“Ok,” Michael said, “Good. Can I get you to go get us both glasses of water? There’s clean ones in the drying rack.”

“Sure,” Alex said, the adrenaline of whatever that had just been still humming under his skin. He pulled out two clear glasses of water from the light blue drying rack.

“Tap is perfect.”

Alex nodded, filling the glasses up and bringing them back over to the table where Michael had reassembled the puzzle lid.

He took the glass Alex offered and set it down beside the box. “Better?”

“Better? What do you mean?”

“You were having a panic attack, so you grounded yourself and then did a small, physical task that moved your body for you. Do you feel better?”

Alex pressed a hand to his rib, where the handprint still glowed under his coverup. “Can’t you feel?” he asked. 

“I can, but I’d rather hear your voice.”

Alex bit his lip before saying: “I -- I do. I didn’t know that’s how to stop them.”

Michael shrugged: “One of my labmates, she had the kind of childhood we did. She gets them when our Principal Investigator decides to get shouty. She taught me how to work through them, if they’re something that comes up for me.”

“You get panic attacks?”

Michael shook his head: “No, I’m lucky. But people I care about do, so I wanted to learn how to help.”

Alex’s heart rate was almost back to normal. “That’s -- that’s really kind. I, uh, I can’t tell anyone. Back in my timeline. That that’s what these are. I made my friend call them 'papaya allergies'.”

Michael cracked up for a moment. “That’s pretty silly. It’s a work thing? You’re not allowed to have mental health issues and travel in time?”

Alex nodded.

“That’s dumb. You clearly kickass at your job, and you’d only get better if you didn’t feel awful all the time.”

“Feel awful -- what do you mean?”

Michael looked a little abashed. “Like, I can tell that you’re happy to see me. And when you smile and laugh, I can tell through the handprints and because I know you, that those are real. But there’s this background noise -- like everything you’re doing, you’re trying to shout through a windtunnel of crap. Fear and anxiety and self-hate and all of that normal crap for people with shitty childhoods. And none of it is your fault, but you deserve some help learning how to turn the goddamned windtunnel off.” He shrugged. “Or, that’s how I think about it. Everyone has their own metaphors and stuff.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Alex said, “About asking for help." He hedged. "Maybe.”

Michael’s smile was bright. “Sounds like a good plan. Can that be our deal this time?” He hurried to add. “Not that you get help, I know you only get a few days between these missions, but that you decide if you want it, and how you want it.” He glanced at Alex’s wrist; 302 seconds. “You have someone you can talk about it with?”

Alex nodded. “A couple of people now.”

“I’m glad. You deserve it.” He glanced down at Alex’s pin. “You’re sure you’re ok wearing that back? And do you need to cover-up the marks?”

“Like I said, I’m proud to wear it. The handprints are covered, I got some make-up that’s actually my skin tone.”

Michael held his arms out. “Looking forward to Doha and getting some pigment back on these bad boys.”

“Gonna be a total gun show.”

Michael made fake-body builder arms as Alex cracked up. 

Michael pressed his hand to his chest, right over his heart: “It’s cool to feel you laughing. It’s like I’m laughing too.”

“Do you have control, over what of your emotions you show me?” Alex asked.

Michael nodded: “I’ve been practicing with Max and Isobel for the past 2 years. Unless it's really intense, I can always keep it to myself.”

“So you know everything I’m feeling, but I don’t know what you’re feeling.”

“It’s not fair, but we don’t have enough time for me to teach you. Some other time.” He said with a smile.

“Some other time.” Alex replied, returning the smile.

He looked down at his watch: 22 seconds.

Alex stepped around the table, wrapping Michael in a warm hug, which he returned, even more tightly.

“Alright.” He said, stepping back 6 feet.

“See you in 2010.”

“Not if I see you first?” Michael said.

Alex managed to grin before the timestream circled around him, glowing orange and purple and blue, and his life flashed before his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a video of the Qozhaya monastery’s original hermitage -- you can see stalactites and stalagmites being formed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmRh5LfZ564&t=1s
> 
> Also, the cats at Khalil Gibran's house are cute, but mean.


	21. do that which might hurt you

Alex was scrubbing the bottom of Kyle’s best stock pot with a little too much vigor. He’d tried to make maqluba; he’d been carving away incinerated potatoes long enough he was nearly done with recounting every detail of his visit with Michael. “And then I gave him a hug and headed out.”

“Wait, _you_ gave him a hug or he hugged _you_?”

“ _I_ hugged _him_ ,” Alex said, really leaning into scrubbing the potato remains. “I know how to hug people.”

“Since when.”

Alex thought about it. “Yesterday. Well, last week if you count hugs I wanted and someone else initiated.” He shot Kyle a glare. “I know how to hug!”

“Oh man, Alex. Oh man,” Kyle muttered.

“I’m good at hugs,” Alex insisted, “I’m sure _Michael_ thinks I’m good at hugs.”

“I’m sure he does,” Kyle said, keeping his voice even. “So, your next trip, you’re seeing him after that day with Dr Guerin in Doha?”

“I can’t _believe_ he gave me a fake name! Like, who does that?”

“You, on nearly every single mission you go on?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but I’m not a target. I’m his friend.” He handed the thoroughly-scoured pot over for inspection.

Kyle nodded. “Sure, but you said you told him about your time travel ethics, about not knowing your future.”

“You think he gave me a fake name and didn’t tell me he knew me to keep from telling me my future?”

“I absolutely think that’s what happened.” Kyle paused, drying the pot. “You mentioned that he was hoping you’d tell him if you were planning to talk to a counselor?”

Alex nodded, scrubbing greasy remains of cleaning dishes off his hands. “I did.” He turned the water up hot enough it started to steam. “I just -- “ his hands were feeling like they were burning, but he kept scrubbing. Kyle reached over and switched off the water. Alex sighed, pressing his palms to the still-hot stainless steel bottom of the sink. “Where would I even start?”

“Well, that’s not a bad first question,” Kyle said. “You probably don’t want to talk to someone employed by the Time Agency, given the potential conflicts of interest. So you can find a counselor through Psychology Today’s website or your insurance company may keep a list.” _Insurance; something else to look-up._ “Most places you’ll have a bunch of options and you use their search tool to find someone who might fit what you need. Use terms you think might work.”

“Like what?”

Kyle shook his head: “Nope, that’s on you to figure out. I’m not going to drive that process.”

Alex grumbled to himself, drying his tender hands on the red kitchen towel that hung from the pull-bar of the oven. He felt a warm push from Michael and tried to push back -- he didn’t know if it was in response to the stinging of his skin or something else that was making Michael reach out, but he loved the contact. That Michael was thinking of him in 2018, sending him good feelings was -- it was good. Felt good. 

“Earth to Alex?”

Alex realized he had his hand pressed against the nearly-faded handprint on his ribs, like if he pushed hard enough, he’d be able to touch Michael’s hand.

“Yeah?”

“You said Flint gave you your next mission?”

Alex nodded, picking up the blue folder from the counter.

“It’s why I picked maqluba -- he gave me my next two. Oman next, then Gaza.”

“What do your missions have to do with nearly ruining my best stock pot and marinating my floor in chicken juice?”

“Maqluba’s a national Palestinian dish. I had it the last time I was in Ramallah and I wanted to see if I could make it.”

Kyle glanced at the pot in the drying rack: “I mean, it kind of worked?”

“Women spend their entire childhoods’ watching their mothers make it, I’m sorry if my first try didn’t meet your culinary standards.”

“Hey, no need to be spicy. I’m just saying, the next time you want to pour an entire pot of chicken stew on my floor, just give me a heads-up.”

Alex glared: “The video I watched said to layer the potatoes, then the pan-browned chicken breasts, then the carrots, then the cauliflower florets, then the celery, then the rice, then the chicken stock, all in a stainless steel stock pot. Cook until the water has been entirely soaked up, 3-4 hours. That’s long enough to read and process 2 full briefings. Then when it’s all cooked, you put a big plate on top, then flip it over, pull the pot off, and voilà!”

Kyle glanced down at the freshly-scrubbed floor.

“I’m guessing that all of the stock didn’t get soaked up?”

“How could I tell! It was hiding in the bottom of the pot.”

Kyle’s voice was gently teasing: “And so when you flipped it over --”

“It went everywhere. I cleaned it up.” 

“I know you did. I came back from work and you were scrubbing the floor with bleach, scream-singing along to 'Totally Fucked' from _Spring Awakening_ on a loop. I honestly thought I was going to find parts of the Colonel in the bathroom tub.”

“I would never do that in your apartment.”

There was a long pause. Then a delicately-phrased question: “That’s your only objection?”

Alex thought about it: “It would be terrible op-sec to do that anywhere I lived.”

Kyle’s face was screwed up with tension: “Are you planning to kill the Colonel?”

“Not in any ‘I have a plan’ kind of way. But -- him or me,” _him or Michael, him or Kyle, him or Rosa_ , _him or Flint,_ “I know who I’m choosing.”

“Has that come up before?”

Alex shook his head slowly. “Not until Sierra Leone. But he’s never tried to kill me with his own hands --”

“Alex,” Kyle said with a soft pain, “I’ve been your doctor for 3 years. I’ve seen the scars.”

“That -- that wasn’t attempted murder. That was --” and Alex ran out of runway. He didn’t know what to call what happened in the Colonel’s office.

“Abuse.” Kyle said quietly.

Alex blinked quickly and said: “But I know what it’s like when someone’s trying to kill me. That wasn’t it.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this, but we can agree that he tried to have you killed in Sierra Leone.”

“Yeah, two assassins, an automatic weapon and a grenade weren’t a particularly _subtle_ approach.”

“And you think he arranged it on your first pass through that timeline, when you were 19?”

“I think he planned it about 15 seconds after I kicked him out of the tent in Kuwait in 1992, but yeah, the actual logistics were finalized in 2009.”

“Alex, how are you so calm about this.”

Alex bit his tongue to keep from snapping. He said: “What do you want me to do, Kyle? My commanding officer, my only remaining parent, the man who holds my first words, who I spent almost every waking moment with from 2 to 18, has wanted me dead since I was a toddler. How the _fuck_ am I supposed to feel about that, react to that? And,” he said, before Kyle could start to answer, “How am I supposed to handle that _and keep my job_? My only way to help people, the only thing I’m good at,” _my only way to see keep my promise to Michael_ , “how can I do that and deal with that information? So,” he waved his hands, “I’m boxing it up.”

Kyle’s voice was quiet: “You know, for most people, those internal boxes are made of cardboard. They degrade eventually, and unexpectedly.”

Alex gritted his teeth. “My job is to make sure that doesn’t happen, or when it does, I’m the only one it hurts.”

A look of pain flashed across Kyle’s face, but he nodded, seeming to decide to let it rest. “Those are all good things to talk about with a counselor. They can give you an idea of how long you have, how to tell when the box is degrading, and how to unpack it so it doesn’t mess up the rest of your life.”

Alex frowned, staring at the newly-bleach-scented wall. “I figured they would tell me to quit and not to come back until I’d done it.”

Kyle rubbed his mouth for a second and said: “Counselors don’t get to tell you what to do. They’re there to make suggestions, based off of their experience and research. How and if you implement those suggestions, whether you quit the counselor because they’re pushing for something you don’t believe will help you achieve your goals, that’s all your choice. They can’t pull you from missions or out of situations -- they can just make you see if that’s what you want.”

He paused, before continuing: “Rosa’s had a lot of help from counselors over the years, from the stuff with her bio Mom and her substance stuff. You can ask her what a typical session is like, some examples of the homework she’s been given over the years.”

“Okay,” Alex said. He felt a gentle push from Michael, a warm press of hands, bringing him back to something soft now he’d finished digging through the muck that was his mental space.

“So, what’s the mission in Oman?”

“Oh,” Alex said, turning to start putting the air-dried dicing knives away, “It’s a ‘for the want of a nail,’ kind of thing. January of 1998.”

Kyle frowned. “Were you in Oman in 1998?”

Alex shook his head: “No. But the Colonel had a trip that connected through Dubai airport and there’s a bus.” He gave a small smile. “It’s actually kind of a clever setup. Either Flint is giving the Time Analysts a freer rein, or some kind of policy priority has shifted, because this one’s better than usual.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“So, May 1998, India tests a nuclear weapon, for a lot of reasons, but one of them was pushing back at the idea that already-nuclear states got to shut the nuclear clubhouse door on everyone else.”

“Makes a certain kind of sense.”

“Sure. If what you care about is joining a club of genocidaires and maniacs.”

Kyle frowned: “So that’s the US, genocidaire or maniac?”

“My mother would say both, at least in how we’ve developed and managed our nuclear arsenal. But we’re getting off track -- the issue isn’t why India wants to join the nuclear club, but whether they can do it sanely.”

“Some would argue anyone trying to develop nuclear weapons has a sanity problem.”

“Ok, but there are nine countries already doing it -- or who everyone thinks have them. Most of them have controls over them -- it’s called the 3-Cs: command, control, communication. All of that basically boils down to: can the state with nuclear weapons know for sure it will only kill people with them when it wants to? There’s _a process._ Not when someone hacks into the system, not when a flock of birds flies overhead, not when some dude who’s been stuck smelling other men’s socks on a submarine for 9 months loses his shit: but only when the government and its leaders want to use it.”

“That’s -- that’s not a given?”

Alex pushed himself up to sit on the counter, letting his prosthetic hang and taking some of the weight off of his stump. “God. I wish it was. But some of these nuclear states, they don’t have professionalized militaries, they aren’t democracies. And with the US, our entire command and control system was built in the ‘50s, though parts of it have been upgraded.”

“The red telephone,” Kyle said, “and the nuclear football?”

“Yeah, those were really intense Cold War props and they show-up a lot in pop culture, but they aren’t really how it works today. There’s usually codes that are secret, ones that only the president and some people he chooses knows. With Clinton, that was a lot of people. With H.W. Bush, old spy that he was, that group was tiny. But with India, the people who can order nuclear weapons used is called the ‘nuclear enclave’ and it’s miniscule. They keep _everything_ tight to the chest. You know, in the time I’m going back to, the Indian military didn’t even know how many nukes they had -- not because they’d lost them, but because the civilian government didn’t trust the military not to use them as leverage, stage a coup, generally act nuts.”

“That’s, not how I’m used to thinking the military operates.” Kyle’s eyes were getting wider and wider as Alex kicked his heels against the cabinet

“Well, it’s how it is in a lot of places. But so, in this timeline, India does a nuclear test on May 11th, 1998, and then another on May 13th. _And they have no written nuclear doctrine_. No clear guidance to the commanders. The entire process went, as far as we can tell, through the Bharatiya Janata Party’s most senior politicians, who were leading the parliamentary democracy at that point.”

“Being able to form and dissolve governments so fast kind of makes me seasick when I try to track what’s going on in parliamentary democracies.”

Alex’s smile was a little bitter: “Well, our two-party system with a strong executive and tightly-scheduled elections makes a lot of people feel sick for different reasons. _Anyway_ , so, this nuclear test in 1998 _did not have any kind of command and control process_. And no matter what you think about nuclear weapons, no matter what you think about the nuclear club or the unfairness of who gets to be in it and who doesn’t, anyone who wants the world not to blow up into a pile of uranium dust wants the decision to use a nuclear weapon _to have some kind of process behind it_. Not be on the whim or ego-trip of 3 men in a bunker.”

“Okay, so what does this have to do with your mission?”

“One of those men, who’s going to be in that bunker, who we believe is the one who drove the process, made the successful push to get Indian to do their first nuclear weapon’s test in 24 years. The meeting where the tests were scheduled was in January 1998.” Alex’s smile felt more real: “But if he never goes, the Overton window on the idea of a nuclear test closes. India doesn’t do a test; Pakistan doesn’t do a test. China doesn’t get to make closer relationships with Pakistan and cutoff support for Tibet and Nepal. We start the new millennium, not with sanctions towards the world’s largest democracy, but a peaceful, positive relationship.”

“Huh,” Kyle said. “So, you’re going to kill him?”

Alex frowned: “That’s more the Colonel’s style. But this mission came at the shared request of _both_ the Pakistani and Indian governments, so no. I’m just going to get him stuck in No-Man’s Land until he misses his meeting.”

“Huh,” Kyle said. He took a breath. “There’s no new vaccinations you need for Oman --”

“I’ve been there before --”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot that was on your timeline. Anyway, that sounds like a less intense mission than you’ve had before.”

“Yeah, I don’t know why Flint’s pulling his punches with me.”

Kyle’s face twisted a little: “I meant that as a good thing.”

“I know you did,” Alex said, hoping off the counter and gathering up his briefings, “I’m going to go prep, since the mission’s in the morning.”

“Sleep well, Alex,” Kyle said, pulling out his phone.

“You too,” Alex said, before shutting his door.

\--

Alex flinch-curled around the feeling of a kick, eyes flying open in the dark of his room at Kyle’s. He tried to grab the boot but all he caught was air. He shoved himself out of bed, back to the closet door, gun out from under the bed and cocked as he searched for the sound of a moving body. Nothing. Not so much as another’s breath.

He waited a long minute, then tried to remember where the nearest lightswitch was. He used the wall to lever himself to standing, slapping the wall switch and scanning the dimly lit room to find -- nothing. 

There was no one in the room.

It wasn’t that Alex didn’t relive his childhood in his nightmares; he did. But like a lot of kids with his childhood, he didn’t cry out or fight back in his dreams; he just got small. Got still. When he’d bunked with men in combat zones, he’d never had to worry about waking anyone up with his nightmares. He might be achy and pissed, slow and tired the next day; but no one would know why unless he told them.

But he’d never felt something like this, something that felt real to him when he was awake.

He had a horrible thought and pushed a feeling of fear, of query towards Michael through their nearly-faded connection. There was a long pause, a static, humming nothing, before the usual warm bubble pushed back to him, sofy and bright, and just a little -- _over_ bright. Like a false smile.

Alex pushed again and it resolved, like the sound of a maybe-warplane overhead resolving into the roar of a jetliner: just the same soft warmth as before.

Alex didn’t buy it. He didn’t like this feeling of faking, this shield Michael was putting between them. If he was being hurt -- but no. It was probably a nightmare, maybe something in their connection, from their first meeting moment. He knew Michael had cause enough for nightmares, even with the short time he’d spent in the system in this timestream.

Alex tried to focus on sending him warm, comfortable feelings -- the feeling of eating what little of the maqluba that had survived with Kyle, the taste of the desert wind as he rode his bike, the shape of a new story hewing out new space in his mind as he explored a book.

Alex slid the gun back into the holster he’d bolted to the bedframe, crawled back under the soft blankets, and tried to just to live in those thoughts. If Michael really needed him, in this time or any other, he had to trust he would call for help.

\--

In the morning, the handprints had faded completely.

\--

Alex opened his eyes into the bright sun of the Dubai airport’s smoking courtyard. It was early enough in the morning he was the only one there, invisible to those inside the terminal thanks to the cinderblock walls and dust-hazed swinging glass door. He hopped the hip-high wall, nodding to a maintenance man who waved back, and strode across the tarmac to the pick-up area. Then he hailed a taxi for downtown. He was dressed in his junior oil exec finest, black pants, black loafers, deep blue shirt. But it was 1998 in Dubai, and no one had heard of flying airplanes into buildings, and airport security was more of a courtesy than an industry.

On the drive to downtown, past the undeveloped desert and beside sparkling green river at the heart of Dubai, he remembered his mission briefing. His target was Ram Shah, senior official in the Bharatiya Janata Party. In about an hour, Minister Shah would be told his fight to Muscat had been canceled -- thanks to the good work of another Time Agent who’d canceled it that morning. The only other way for Minister Shah to get to Muscat in time for his niece's birth was the 6-hour bus trip from Dubai to Muscat.

Alex got out at the corner where the Dubai to Muscat Oman National Transport Company bus picked up. If he’d come here in 2010, the Dubai city bus stops would have been enclosed and air conditioned; as it was, he was grateful it was January and he wasn’t looking down the barrel at a 42C high for the day sitting on the curb.

He looked around for the name of the Omani-government run bus service and saw its sign mixed with a travel agent/post office/drug store/tea shop. He wandered inside to find all the dusty heat and white plastic chairs he could ask for; he smiled at the man in the starched white shirt behind the counter. He looked desi -- Pakistani, Indian, or Bangadeshi. His English accent would have sounded British to Kyle but was pure New Delhi to Alex: “How can I help you?”

“Can I get a ticket to Muscat on the next bus?”

“5.5 Omani riyal or 55 dirhams.” Alex blinked at the difference in surprise. Then he grinned, pulling the 1998 money out. He’d forgotten that the Omani riyal was pegged to about 10% of the Qatari riyal; he handed over six Omani riyal and took the change; in 12 years, it would be rare to see coins in use in a khaleegi country, but in the 1990s it would common enough he shouldn’t make a note of it.

“You have your passport? The border crossing is about 4 hours into the drive. You’ll get stamped out of the UAE, then 20 kilometers later, you’ll get stamped into Oman.”

Alex showed him the cover and he nodded. That 20km would give him the 20 minutes he needed to complete his mission. 

The ticket agent said: “The driver should be an hour or two out -- would you like something to drink? I’ve got bottled water, tea, coffee, karak --”

“I’d take a bottled water for the trip and I’d love some karak to share if you don’t mind,” Alex said. “It’s one of my favorites.”

“You know it’s just Lipton black tea, some cardamon, some rainbow condensed milk?” The man gave him a conspiratorial grin.

“Yeah, but on the way in, I heard a Qatari man get into a screaming fight with a British man about how it was not the same as Indian chai and it was a traditional Qatari drink.”

“Well, Lipton has been doing business in India for 400 years, so, that’s a kind of traditional,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, cracking open the Rainbow condensed milk into the styrofoam mug and swirling it around with a teaspoon. Alex smiled back.

Alex’s ethnicity was always read in different ways here. Some people thought he was Filipino, some thought he was white, some thought he was desi. He didn’t read as Arab to anyone he’d met, so sometimes he got to have these quiet expat conversations with people who assumed he was like them and like the majority of people in Dubai: here to work, with no legal rights, forming new communities in an Emirati society happy to have their labor and their silence. A bit of teasing about khaleegi food and drink between expats could go a long way towards making this morning more pleasant.

Alex looked around; no Emirati nationals to overhear and be offended: “It seems like a specific disease of this specific century that it was important for Qatar’s national drink to not owe anything to India; sort of how Americans liked to pretend that barbeque wasn’t an Igbo word and a cooking style that had come across the Atlantic along with enslaved people.”

The man nodded, pouring the brewing tea. “But most of the cultures in this region are syncretic -- there had been desi people living and working in Dubai, in Sharjah, in all of the Emirates, in Doha, in Muscat for centuries.” 

That was why a senior Indian minister having a younger sister who lived in Muscat, who had lived most of her life in Oman, wasn’t particularly strange and why Alex was going to be able to complete his mission without raising much suspicion.

“And Americans coming here for oil and gas for at least the last 50,” Alex took the cup as he nodded to acknowledge the dig. 

“Thanks for the karak, I appreciate it.”

“No problem,” the man said, going back to his month-old copy of _Hindustani Times_. Alex found a plastic chair with an uncracked seat and pulled out his 1997 copy of _On Basilisk Station_ to re-read Honor Harrington’s journey as a starship Captain discovering her government had set her up for failure and then refusing to accept her fate by building-up her crew from near-mutiny into a cohesive, mutually supportive whole.

The bus had pulled up, families visiting Dubai for the weekend piling out and pulling their duct-taped together luggage out from under the undercarriage, when Minister Shah hustled into the ticketing office. Officious and pissy in his white shirt, he eased any worries Alex had had about giving him the worst travel week of his life by snapping at the ticket agent and sniping about the heat of the tea.

Alex slid the bottled water into his backpack, hefted it over his shoulder, and sidled up behind the Minister in line. It wasn’t necessary for them to be seatmates, but it wouldn’t hurt either. They boarded the bus and the man elbowed his way to a window seat, covered his face with his handkerchief, and fell to a lightly snoring sleep before they’d left downtown.

The bus was only half full, the overhead nets for hand luggage were entire empty, so once Alex was sure the man was out and wasn’t going to be waking up, he moved to the window seat behind him. 

The sand outside of Dubai was the regular yellowish taupe of the deserts along the Gulf, dunes rising and aching sweet against the high-noon horizon before falling again. Alex imagined what it would be like to take Michael on this bus ride in 2018, to sit with him, arms pressed together in the too-small seats. He wanted to talk to him about what he saw, about what it meant, these places he’d been, these places he’d grown up.

He wasn’t sure what was going to happen, when he saw him next. Would he be -- upset, that Alex hadn’t recognized him? Weirded out that Alex had been clearly attracted to him? He hadn’t been as physical at their last meeting as he had been in Schenley Park, but Alex had attributed that to him not being a morning person.

Alex supposed he had questions too. He’d been thinking about that long, beautiful day in Doha. There were little things, like in hindsight, it made sense why Michael had expected him to want to buy a souvenir in the souq -- in his timeline, Michael had known Alex to be someone who liked to bring little things back to remember the places he’d been. But in Alex’s own timeline, that moment in the souq with Michael had been the first time he’d even considered buying something for himself on a mission aside from the survival minimum. He wondered what he could bring Michael from Oman -- maybe a blanket for his loft, for those cold Pittsburgh winters? It would depend on if he got there in time to go to the souq.

Then there was Michael hitting on him. In a country where it could get them both deported, if not roughed-up in prison. As cuddly as Michael had been in Schenley Park, Alex had made sure that nothing physical could happen between them. But now, through a quirk of their timelines, they knew they shared an attraction, as well as a physical comfort. So, what would Michael think of what had happened -- and what hadn’t? And what would he do about it when he saw him next?

Alex was jostled out of a cycle of worry when he glanced out the window and had to hold-in a laugh: 3 hours out of Dubai, the sand had turned hot pink. Bright, flamingo, pink-triangle, pink-drinks-at-Planet-7 pink. Even though pink wasn’t seem as effeninte here -- and most of the public things the Colonel would consider “effeminate” were totally normal and acceptable behaviors for men -- it tickled something inside of Alex to see such a femme color slapped across the belly of the UAE.

He saw the dark mountains of Oman rising and began to prepare.

This was the only border in the world, as far as Alex had ever seen, where you checked out of one country -- passport stamped with an exit visa -- and then got back on a bus for 20 minutes before arriving at the Omani Welcome Center. The Omani Welcome Center had a cafe and air conditioning and its plastic tables outside for baggage searches -- unlike most other countries in the region that banned alcohol, Oman had a “two bottles of wine” maximum that they carefully enforced. Once their bags passed inspection, they would line up inside and get their passports stamped with a 30-day tourist entry visa. 

In the 20km and 20 minutes in between those two stops, the bus was full of stateless people; it was the closest thing the Middle East had to a No Man’s Land.

It was in those 20 minutes Alex was going to steal the Minister’s passport. He would be trapped at the Omani Welcome Center for a week as his government spatted and hissed and the Omani government dragged its shoes and generally enjoyed the chance to prove that no one got special treatment in the Sultanate.

The black stone mountains rose around them, low and rolling and then arcing and dry. When the monsoon rains came across the Indian Ocean, these mountains would flower and flourish, be absolutely stunning, before going back to their hot-day rest. It was the thing that people who grew-up in green and growing places never got about desert-country: when everything looked dead, it was just resting, surviving, storing up its energy for when it could be used best. Trying to thrive and grow in harsh conditions just killed you faster, that is what Alex had learned from the desert. Wait until there is water, shelter, companion plants to share the load; then, when it comes, grow as fast and as far as you can while you have it.

He pulled himself to standing, ducking under the hand luggage nets that looped across the ceiling over the seats, making sure he was behind the Minister. Minister Shah was holding his passport in his hand, thumb on the newest blank page; it was thick and blue, with extra pages. Alex did the same, his own passport showing a light travel itinerary to OPEC countries which fit his cover; the forgers at the Time Agency were the best in the business.

The Minister was muttering and grumbling to himself the entire way, comparing the efficiency, organization, and speed of the UAE consular officers to his own government’s civil servants and finding them wanting. Everyone else ignored him, but Alex tracked his passport. 

Once it was stamped, it went into his back right pocket. Alex held his out to be stamped -- 

“How’d you like Indonesia?”

Alex’s eyes snapped to the consular officer, his bright eyes and smile making something inside Alex sag. He hadn’t chatted with anyone _else_. _20 minutes, I have 20 minutes_ , Alex reminded himself as Minister Shah clambered up the stairs and onto the bus.

“It was beautiful, have you been?”

“No, but I was going to request it for my next posting. Do you think Jakarta or Bali is better?”

Alex had never been: “I’d pick Jakarta -- Bali is going to be full of hippy Americans getting high and finding their chi and generally being nuisances. Stick to the city.”

“If I picked a posting in the US, where do you think?”

“What are your options?”

“Your capital, then missions in New York, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Chicago.” 

Alex smiled, thinking: “DC for politics, New York for culture, Houston for oil and barbeque, San Francisco for food and tech, Los Angeles for beaches and food, and Chicago if you want to experience the real American winter.”

“What if I want to bring my family, which is best?”

Alex thought back to what he’d heard from soldiers he’d met who’d come from each of them: “There are good schools in each of them, but I think LA would be easiest to get the hang-of quickly. The weather’s similar and there’s a big Muslim community there. Not a lot of Ibadi masjids, but there’s a diverse Sunni community. New York’s really crowded if you’re not used to it.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

The man stamped his passport, waving him on. Alex tucked it into his front pocket, deep down where it would be hard to grab.

Alex took a lap around the black gravel where the dusty bus was parked, stretching his legs, and trying to figure out how he was going to complete his mission. He could see -- and _hear_ \-- Minister Shah snoring against the window.

He settled on a plan. It wasn’t big on dignity, but it would work.

Alex took out his bottle of water, and loosened the top so it had a steady drip. Then he took his copy of _On Basilisk Station_ out of the bottom of the bag, checked to make sure there was nothing else that would be hurt by water, and got back on the bus. He carefully placed the bag into the luggage net, dripping water bottle direction positioned over Minister Shah. He nodded a greeting to the woman in the light blue headscarf across the aisle and she nodded back. Then he sat down, tucked his knees against the back of the seat in front of him, and waited.

They were on the two-lane highway in the unclaimed land between the two countries when he felt the first drip. Another. Another. Another. Bouncing off of the Minister’s ear and soaking into his white shirt. Slowly soaking in. Another. Another. Another.

The man slept on.

Alex gave it 5 more pages when --

“What the _fuck!_ ” the man shouted, coming awake and slapping his hands at Alex, as if it was Alex who had been flicking his ear. Alex moved to standing in the aisle and the man followed him, bellowing.

“Sir?” Alex said, voice quiet and polite, hands out at his sides as the entire bus turned to stare at them.

“You spat on me!” He gestured to his ear, finger pointed and accusing and then waved it in Alex’s face.

Alex looked around, eyes wide. “Sir, no I didn’t. I was sitting and reading.”

“Yes, what are you talking about?” Said the woman across the aisle from them. “He did nothing.”

“Then _why_ am I _wet?_ ” the Minister nearly shrieked.

Alex looked down, visibly realizing his shoulder was soaked through. “Oh, gross -- I think there’s a leak -- it got me too!”

The man was all ramped-up and didn’t seem to have an offramp in his mind: “ _You were spitting on me!_ ”

The bus driver came on the intercom: “Will the gentleman in white who is yelling stop please? Or I will have to pull us to the side.”

“I will _not_ stop yelling, this young man _spit_ at me!”

“He did not,” said the woman beside him. “He has been reading peacefully.”

“Sir, if you do not stop yelling, I will have to ask for you to disembark,” the bus driver was slowing down. The bus jerked and the other passengers awoke with a clatter and shouted questions. It jerked again as the bus driver pulled to a full stop and Minister slammed into Alex, unsteady on his feet, and Alex grabbed the passport, quickly tucking it into his book -- then the Minister shoved past him to go and scream at the driver.

Alex sat down in the seat behind where the water was dripping, hearing the Minister’s screaming get louder and louder.

“He seems a real jerk,” the woman who’d spoken up for him said in Omani Arabic.

Alex nodded and answered in a khaleegi dialect: “Thank you for speaking up.”

She shrugged: “He was being rude.”

“Still, it’s hard to speak up.”

She shook her head: “Not for me. Courage takes practice. Practice on the small things or the hard things will be too hard to do them when you need to.”

“I like that, thank you.”

“Also,” she said, turning in her seat: “He was gesturing.”

Alex cocked his head. “Yes?”

“It’s extremely rude here to gesture with your hands. It’s in most of the guidebooks, but even pointing with your finger to give directions is rude. Hands should be in pockets, under crossed arms, or below the waist at all times. I guess he was too good to read the guidebook.”

The driver was now arguing

“I didn’t know that,” Alex said.

“No problem,” she said, going back to her own book, an Arabic edition of Nawal El Saadawi’s _Woman at Point Zero_.

She was the only passenger not watching the drama at the front of the bus, where the diminutive driver was currently point-guarding the Minister down the steps of the bus, using a low and firm tone as the man screamed. Once they were both off the steps of the bus, the driver locked the door behind him. Then, as the Minister followed him behind, screaming threats, he carefully unlocked the undercarriage, got the minister’s bag out. He got a box of water and a box of food and what looked like a small tent out. He set them all carefully by the side of the highway. Then he got back on the bus.

“The passenger has about 3 hours to wait for the next bus, who I will notify at the Omani Welcome Center to pick him up. He has food and water for a week and all of his belongings. I apologize for the intrusion and interruption.”

The bus was silent for a long moment before the woman beside Alex gave him a sneaky smile and began to clap.

The entire bus joined her as the bus peeled away from the side of the highway, leaving the Minister behind.

Alex used the bathroom at the Omani Welcome Center to dry off his shoulder and tuck the Minister’s passport into the bottom of one of the trashcans. Then he headed back out and had a pleasant snack before getting back on the bus. The water bottle was empty and the bag drying quickly in the dry heat.

An hour before Muscat, the black mountains turned zebra-striped, green and white and black, fierce jags and juts, sweeping up and plummeting down. Alex couldn’t keep his eyes on his book, following one sedimentary line for kilometer after kilometer as it formed mountains and valleys, fed wadis and undercut plateaus.

He had to bring Michael here.

\--

Alex got into Muscat in time to go by the souq where he bought a handwoven saddle blanket in the striped reds and blacks of the majilis, something to hang on a wall or the end of a couch. Then he bunked down in a quiet hotel, shoved the low couch in the room against the door, and went to sleep.

He woke up with enough time to get breakfast, getting a hot tea since there was no karak on offer. “Boiled, bottled, or beer” was a great plan for avoiding stomach bugs while traveling, but “beer” was light on the ground pretty much anyplace he’d spent a lot of time. And he’d had his fill of bottled water.

He wandered around the wharf for the hours he had until his 24-hour mission clock ran out, looking out over the ships -- a Russian battleship practicing in the Indian Ocean, a fleet of wooden dhow, fiberglass fishing vessels painted in bright colors, and container ships taking on supplies before heading into the Gulf.

He thought about showing Michael the ships, translating what they said on their sides in curling Arabic: “God willing,” “God is great,” “Love.”

He headed back to his hotel room, sitting on the bed with his backpack in his arms as his watch counted down, wondering what he would find when he landed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maqluba is real and I make it every year for Thanksgiving using one of my friend's grandma's recipes that she gave me (because turkey tastes like angry napkins and I like de-colonializing thanksgiving): https://youtu.be/F0Uj7mJBlJs?t=137
> 
> I made up Ram Shah, but here's some more info on the actual historical events around the 1998 Indian nuclear test:  
> https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008-06/looking-back-1998-indian-pakistani-nuclear-tests
> 
> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2020.1760021?utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Journal_for_Peace_and_Nuclear_Disarmament_TrendMD_0 and 
> 
> That bus from Dubai to Muscat is real, that crossing is real, and hand gestures being very, very rude is real. But no one got kicked off of my bus. I spent 5 beautiful days in Oman in 2010 and enjoyed it so much.
> 
> Note: If anyone wants a quick meta on the chapter titles, you can find it here: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/619476714038476800/meta-on-chapter-titles-for-my-love-is-a-life


	22. be cool when I say this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yesterday, rather than writing this update, I spent the middle of the day covering my Odd Fellows lodge in pride flags, each flag representing the gender identity or sexual orientation of either a member of the lodge or a member of a group whom we host (most of whom I recruited):  
> \- Asexual Pride Flag  
> \- Rainbow Philly Pride Flag (Note: this flag Includes all queer people and centers the experiences of queer people of color)  
> \- Nonbinary Pride Flag  
> \- Trans Pride Flag  
> \- Demisexual Pride Flag  
> \- Bisexual Pride Flag  
> \- Asexual Pride Flag (again! It's really hard putting a bunch of flags up 20' in the air on a hot day while wearing a pandemic mask, so your dear correspondent got a little confused)  
> \- Pansexual Pride Flag  
> \- In the window is the Aromantic Pride Flag (we don't have any Aro members of our lodge, but we wanted to make sure that community was included as well)
> 
> It's the first time in 144 years they've celebrated Pride. It took 4 months of organizing, dozens of hard conversations with members from ages 24 to early 80s, and 90 minutes of close Roberts Rules of Order parliamentary procedure combat. But in the end, we won. The lodge is flying the Philly Pride Flag and the Trans Pride Flag from the top of one of the tallest buildings in downtown Mountain View, in the heart of Silicon Valley. That feels pretty good.
> 
> In addition to the Pride Flags, we put a display in our window on the Main Street, highlighting the strength and diversity of the community we serve. Members of our lodge and our the broader community who finds sanctuary and support in our lodge speak over a dozen languages. Over the past few months, we have worked together to translate a simple phrase into 14 of them: Everyone is Welcome Here ❤️.  
> \- English: All are welcome here ❤️  
> \- Spanish: Todos son bienvenidos aquí ❤️  
> \- Tagalog: Kayong lahat ay malugod naming tinatanggap dito❤️  
> \- Mandarin: 这里欢迎所有人❤️  
> \- Japanese: ここは、全て大歓迎です。❤️  
> \- Vietnamese: Hoan nghenh moi nguoi cung toi❤️  
> \- Hindi: यहां हर इंसान का स्वागत हैं । ❤️  
> \- Hebrew: ❤️כולם מוזמנים כאן  
> \- Arabic: ❤️نحن نرحب بجميع الناس هنا  
> \- Nederlands: Iedereen is welkom hier❤️  
> \- German: Jeder ist hier willkommen❤️  
> \- Bangla: এখানে সর্ব মানুষ আমন্ত্রিত ।❤️  
> \- Korean: 모두는 환영합니다.❤️  
> \- Yoruba: E Kabo❤️
> 
> So, I didn't get this chapter up yesterday. But, I think if you've read this far, you get why.

Alex opened his eyes in Michael’s house in Doha, the air cool with night and the lights off. He was crouched against the stainless steel fridge, backpack still in his arms. He reached up to grip the counter and hauled himself to standing, bracing his hands on the white-topped island, leaving his bag at his feet.

Michael was on the couch, but when he saw Alex he rose carefully: “So,” he said, “You didn’t know it was me.”

Alex shook his head, trying to see his expression in the low light from the TV: “No, I didn’t.”

“How long ago was that for you?” Michael asked, taking a step towards Alex across the pale carpet. He curls were still shorn tight against his head and he was wearing a soft-looking white henley. 

“Three weeks, give-or-take.”

His lips quirked into a tiny smile: “Me too. First time we’ve been on the same page in that way.” Another step. Alex held still, hands tight the edge of the island.

“You knew it was me?”

Michael’s smile got bigger and he took another step closer: “You don’t change that much between visits, Mr Mechanical Engineering Major at Texas A&M.”

Alex’s voice was soft: “For me, when I saw you last in Doha, the Michael I knew was a 9-year-old boy.”

“And then you went straight from Doha to finding me sassing off child predators on the highway outside of Foster’s Ranch. A bit of a hard shift.” Another big step closer -- he was just on the other side of the island now. Alex’s heart was slamming in his chest, a flush rising in his cheeks.

“I was just glad to get you home, get you to safety.”

Michael began to step around the island. “So your reaction to me, when you first saw me -- it had nothing to do with our history. Just my present.”

“My reaction?”

Michael paused, tilting his head: “You looked at me like I was a bomb you wanted to lick. Something that could pull you apart at the seams and you’d be glad about it.’

Alex wasn’t sure he could blush any harder, but here he was. “You said something, when you first hit on me, about ‘that far back then.’ What did you mean?”

“Oh,” and Michael looked down at his bare feet, shuffling a little, still just barely out of touching distance. “The last time I’d seen you before this, I sent you off to the Time Agency with a rainbow pin stuck over your heart. Then I see you and you’re too freaked out by flirting with a man to so much as make consistent eye-contact. So I figured you were at least a few weeks younger.”

Alex’s heart was in this throat: “Was it -- was it ok for you? Seeing me that way? Interacting with me, as an adult?”

Michael took another step around the island, close enough Alex could grab his hand if he wanted to. But he needed to know the answer, needed it so much he wasn’t going to breathe until he heard Michael’s voice.

“Was it ok,” he frowned. Then he looked up, eyes finding Alex’s and anchoring him, yanking him into focus: “Alex, I’ve wanted you in some shape or another since I could want. You’ve always been really, really careful to set appropriate boundaries, to protect me even from my own teenaged self, but that doesn’t stop my feelings. The chance, to see you react to me as an adult, in control of my own life -- and even more so, the chance to give you a full good day, to get to know parts of you I don’t get to see in 1000 seconds a year --” he took a breath, finally letting his burning gaze dropped as he rifled his hand through his close-cropped hair. His voice was small and sure. “It was the best day of my life.”

“Mine too,” Alex breathed, feeling his blood pressing its own rhythms against the thin skin at his wrists, under his jaw, at his ankle. “It was the best day of my life too.”

Michael’s smile was bright and real and he took a step closer -- and Alex put his hand in the middle of his chest, holding him back. Michael paused, face falling, but waiting for Alex. 

Alex said: “But you’re still 20.”

Michael nodded slowly. “I am.”

“And I’m still 28.”

“Correct, that is how math works.”

“And the math is still wrong. Half my age plus 7 is still 21. You’re still missing the cut-off, Dr Truman.”

Michael snickered, hand drifting up to lightly trace the tips of his fingers across the back of Alex’s hand, breathing against the pressure for a minute. Alex wasn’t sure he would be able to stand it, being so close. But he held on.

“So, no first kiss against the kitchen counter?”

Alex’s nails dug in through Michael’s soft white henley, the texture of the fabric grounding him. “No,” he croaked.

“But next time --”

“I don’t want you waiting for me,” Alex said in a rush. “I don’t want you putting your life on hold for 16 minutes a year.”

Michael’s fingers spread out against the back of Alex’s hand, pressing it, whole and tight, to his chest. Alex could swear he could feel Michael’s heart beating like hummingbird wings against the soft skin of his palm. “I’ve dated other people, Alex. I’ve been in love. That’s why I know what this feels like. What it looks like.”

“I haven’t,” Alex said, voice cracking, but needing to say this, needing Michael to know what he might be getting into, _give him a chance to get out, to leave,_ “I have no idea how to do this safely, so you don’t get hurt. I’d have no idea what to do, if we had just met at the Wild Pony or Planet 7 or Crashdown, much less whatever brings us together here.”

Michael frowned, hand still tight on Alex’s: “So do you not want --”

“I don’t want to be something you regret, Michael. I couldn’t take that -- I couldn’t stand it. If you regretted me.”

Michael’s expression softened, fingers curling around to grip Alex’s palm where it was pressed against his chest. “I could never regret you, Alex.”

“But what if you meet someone else, someone better --”

Michael held up a hand: “Last time you saw me, in Pittsburgh, you noticed how I didn’t come in for a big cuddle session like the time before?”

Alex nodded, frowning a little: “Yeah, but -- you’re not a morning person. I woke you up.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, and Alex would be feeling a lot more worried about where this conversation was going if Michael’s grip wasn’t just as tight, just as steady on his hand, as it had been since he’d first touched him. “But also, because I spent that year thinking. I mean, not just about my thesis and snake robots and teaching and time travel and being an alien in a world where that’s secret. Between that night in Schenley Park and that morning in the loft, I thought a lot about what I wanted. Sexually, emotionally, physically. And it’s not like I’m done thinking, but -- I dated a dozen people that year, spent 9 months with someone. They were good relationships. Healthy, present, real. But I have friends who touch me, friends who hug me and love me. I’ve got work I love and adopted parents who check-in on me and nag me to eat my vegetables and a Mom who’s survived so much and still has so much love for me and mine. I have this whole life.”

He took a breath. “But I also have this hole in my life. This place, for someone steady. Someone who cares for me enough to rewrite history for me. Who is learning to care for himself with a tenth of the passion he shows to everyone else. Who I care for deeply. And who I want to get to know better, any chance I can, whether it’s for 10 seconds or, in 8 years, for as long as he’ll stick around for me.”

He tightened his grip on Alex’s palm, keeping him _here_ , _now_ : “And I’m not putting my life on hold, but in a very real way, I think you’re it for me, Alex. As soon as we can, I -- I would drop everything for you. And not because there’s something wrong with me or with you, but because you’re _that_ special. You’re _that_ important to me.”

He gave a self-deprecating smile. “And I was in the middle of figuring all of that out, the last time we saw each other. I was thinking about it, about whether I wanted to -- to keep things platonic, keep it friendly, no matter what I feel. What you feel. Because I didn’t know -- hoped, but, you know, 1000 seconds a year, it’s not a lot of time to think about, to hope about. And since that night on the grass, under the stars in Schenley Park, for you that was a week ago. But for me, that was 2 years. Two years of thinking and figuring it out.”

He wrapped his hand around Alex’s, fingers sliding along his gun callouses, holding it tight, right over his heart. Alex’s knees were feeling weak and he re-braced himself on the countertop. He was breathing like he’d run a race, each pulse tasting copper in his mouth.

“And the thing is, Alex -- I don’t need your permission. To care for you. To wait. That’s my choice.” Michael took a breath. “That’s what I have to say. That’s my whole heart, out here on the line, Alex. And we’re not going to do anything here, in the minutes we have left.” He adjusted his hand on Alex’s, the gentle lines of fingertips across Alex’s palm making him close his eyes. “But what I wanted to know is, when I see you next, can we talk some more?”

Alex thought he might be going into cardiac arrest, his heart was beating so fast. But he had to find words, had to find a way to respond to that, that outpouring from Michael. His eyes couldn’t leave their hands, intertwined, the feeling of Michael’s fingertips on his palm, rising and falling against Michael’s chest with each indrawn breath. 

“I meant what I said, before the taxi picked me up. I’m yours.” Michael’s face blossomed into a grin, warm and joyful and _real_. “So, maybe, the next time we see each other -- if you still feel the same way -- maybe we can do something about it. If we’re both feeling ready.”

He could nearly hear Michael swallow. Then he nodded, the motion bringing the warm heat of his breath across their shared hands.

“Alright, Alex,” he said, lifting Alex’s hand and pressing a soft kiss to the base of his thumb before letting his hand go -- but Alex snagged it back, tugged Michael’s hand to him, pressing a soft kiss to the center of his palm, eyes on Michael’s.

“It’s a deal.”

Michael gave a shuddering breath and interlaced their fingers, letting their hands hang together between them.

“Before, when you came, I couldn’t show you the upstairs because it would have given the whole show away, but we’ve got a few minutes, you want to see?”

Alex’s smile bloomed: “I’d love to. And before I forget,” he bent down, unzipping his bag and pulling the saddle blanket out, showing it to Michael. 

He didn’t let Alex’s hand go, but waved his hand, turning the kitchen lights on to see the colors. He traced his fingers across the red and the black pattern and grinned: “That’s perfect, I know just where I’ll put it.”

He tugged Alex’s hand, pulling him towards the stairs, and Alex followed along. The staircase itself was plain with realtor white walls, as was the hallway.

But then Michael turned and pulled him into an office where _every wall and the ceiling_ were covered in maps of the stars, including a star chart Alex recognized from his childhood bedroom. It had 3 tables, each against a wall, with alien tech jumbled and glowing purple-orange-blue all over them. Then Michael pointed to a shelf he’d hung in the middle of the wall -- and Alex gasped.

 _Ender’s Game_ and _Ender’s Shadow_ sat in the middle with the Altoid box perched on top of them. The carving of the blue and white Nile looping and twining around each other from Sudan. The Hand of Fatima. The bi-pride flag and Stitch pins. The box from Lebanon.

“That’s beautiful, Michael,” Alex said, heart beating high and tight against his ribs.

“I was thinking, this could go under them?” Michael said lightly, and when Alex nodded, he raised his free hand, levitating all of the things Alex had given him in the past 12 years up high enough that he could float the saddle blanket under it, tucking it delicately back into the corners.

“I’m glad to see the grenade didn’t make it in here.”

“Oh,” Michael said, “they would never let me get that through customs.”

“But you defused it, right?”

“Yep,” Michael said too quickly and Alex narrowed his eyes. Then he took a breath. Michael was clearly adult enough to handle this on his own.

“I wanted to tell you,” Alex said, voice quiet, “I decided to get some help. Someone to talk to. I decided that I,” he took a breath, “I deserve some help.”

Michael gripped his hand, his fingers warm and tight and _there_. “That’s really good, Alex. I’m really glad.”

“I mean, it may not be until you’re 28, what with the American healthcare system,”

Michael snickered, then chuckled, then buried his face in Alex’s shoulder.

“It’s not that funny,” Alex said, wrapping his arm around his shoulders as he shook with laughter, the feeling of his bright and happy in his arms unlocking some long dark part of him, letting it blink slowly to life.

“It’s not, but I’m just -- I’m so happy, Alex. I’m so happy for you.”

Alex pressed his face into the side of Michael’s neck, taking a deep, comforting breath. For the barest moment, he thought about what it would be like to kiss him, to feel him breathing against him, feel his body hot and moving, real and there and whole and happy and _with him_.

He glanced at his watch: 42 seconds.

“I have to go,” he said, breaking the shared quiet of their breaths, in this room surrounded by Michael’s dreams and Alex’s consistent care. Michael nodded, short hair brushing against Alex’s cheek.

Michael whispered: “I’ll see you then.”

“Ok,” Alex said. “Michael -- thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being you. I’ll see you soon.”

“Bye, Alex. Stay safe.”

“You too.”

Alex leaned back, letting Michael’s fingers be the last thing he let go before he stepped into the hallway, ground himself against the wall. Michael held his eyes as the timestream wrapped around him and pulled him back.

\--

Alex opened his eyes in the time chamber to see a smiling room of Indian and Pakistani diplomats. He waved and they clapped politely. Flint moved them to the reception room, Kyle oversaw the decontamination process -- and when the new fresh batch of clothes came through the go-box slot, pressed right into the center of the freshly laundered pair of jeans was a bright, shiny, rainbow pin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to somehowfurious, lambourn, myrmidryad, manesframe, subrubansun, and neradia of the Roswell 18+ Discord for helping figure out where, precisely, Michael was going to kiss on Alex's hand. Shipping these two is a team effort, everyone!


	23. a heartbreaker say it ain’t

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a tag for Gaslighting because we see more of Flint in this chapter than we have in a while.

Alex stepped out of the time chamber, rainbow pin on his chest and looked over at Kyle as he moved through the lab techs.

“Something to say?”

“Nope. Not a thing.” Kyle said, smiling broadly. “Meet you at home?”

“I’m going to see if Rosa’s up for a day trip, but then after, absolutely.”

“Have fun,” Flint said and Alex froze, turning to stare at him. He was leaning his hip against one of the consoles, dark eyes serious. Alex blinked, working his jaw. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyle striding over, coming up to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Alex.

“Excuse me?” Alex said in a low voice.

“Have fun with you day, Alex,” Flint replied in a mild voice.

Alex stared at him. He’d never in his life heard Flint say something like that; he had no idea what to do with it.

Flint shifted a little against the console, glancing at Kyle before looking back at Alex. “Nice pin.”

 _So it’s going to be that._ “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has been repealed for 7 years, Sergeant Manes. It’s been 4 years since the ban on queer sex in the UCMJ was removed. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“That’s -- that’s not what I was trying to say.” He lowered his voice, glancing at Kyle. “Look, can we -- can we talk?”

Alex frowned, neck tense. It had been more than a week since Flint had taken over Time Agency and this was the first time he was speaking to Alex about anything more substantive than handing over a mission briefing.

“What about?”

A flash of frustration roiled over Flint’s face and he glanced around at the techs. “I think -- I think in the past 4 weeks something changed in our timeline. Of our relationship. As family. I want to figure out what it is.”

Alex frowned, thinking through his timelines: “Nothing changed.”

“Then why --” Flint started a gesture at Kyle and then stopped. “Captain Manes, can I have 30 minutes of your time?”

“Is that an order?”

“A request.” That pissed looked again. “Alex, please.”

“I’d like Kyle there.”

Flint glared for a moment. “I don’t think that necessary.”

“I do.”

A long beat.

“Have it your way. My office?”

“Sure,” Alex said easily. “Kyle, does that work for you?”

“No problem, happy to be there.”

Flint tried to slow down so he was walking beside Alex, but Alex kept himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Kyle as they walked down the polished concrete hallways with the exposed steel girders towards the Director’s office. One of the Time Analysts jogged to catch-up with Flint, asking a question about transferring funds to a special projects account for R&D Kyle used the opportunity to ask in an undertone: “Anything specific you need from me in this meeting?”

Alex shook his head, then paused. Eyes on Flint, he said: “Don’t let me go back to him.”

Kyle frowned. “What?”

“No matter what he says, what he does, unless it’s the only way to save someone’s life, don’t let me go back to him. Make it a medical thing if you need to, drag me out of there by my hair, don’t do let me do it.”

Kyle’s face was pained: “I’m not going to drag you anywhere by your hair, but I’ll stop the meeting and get you out of there if you need me to.”

Alex nodded, relief falling like a waterfall across his shoulders.

Flint started walking and they moved to catch-up.

Flint had changed nothing about the Colonel’s office, not the medals on the wall, not the books in the bookcase. _Probably not the belts in the drawer either_ , Alex thought.

Flint moved around the heavy wooden desk and sat down hard on the cushioned office chair; he gestured for Kyle and Alex to take the two seats in front of the desk.

Alex sat, saying nothing.

Flint pursed his lips and tapped his fingers on the desk. Finally, he said: “So, though I am not Time Aware, I have a decade of experience seeing the effect Time Agents have and have learned to watch for the kind of changes in my memory that show an avulsion has occurred. Tricks of the memory, vague spots, places where the emotional consistency of a relationship has shifted.” He looked sharply at Alex who returned it with bland blankness. “Ever since you started have these 16 minute -- 1000 second -- delays in your return, there has been a change in our relationship, Alex.”

Alex said nothing, desperately hoping Flint had no idea about Michael, didn’t have some kind of way of guessing, of stopping him from seeing him.

There was a crack in Flint’s voice when he said: “You moved out. We used to spend half our days together, and I haven’t seen you in weeks outside of this building.”

A traitorous part of Alex’s heart winced and hung heavy with shame. Still, he kept silent. _What if someone had kept Michael from sleeping for years, would you feel guilty about him leaving them?_

“I miss you, Alex.”

Kyle made a noise, but Alex put his hand on his arm.

“I’m 28 and I wanted my own place. That’s not unreasonable.”

“Your own -- but how are you continuing your sleep training? I’m sure Kyle’s tired of it by now.”

“His _what?_ ” Kyle burst out.

Flint flicked him an unfriendly look: “Alex has been training to perform at peak efficiency under extreme stress, as part of his duties as a Time Agent. That involves sleep training.”

Alex glanced over at Kyle, who was stuttering with fury. He let him get a hold of himself enough to say: “No other Time Agent goes through anything like what Alex has described to me of your shared living environment.”

Flint shook his head ruefully: “No, but then, Alex has always been special. Three times the normal number of missions of any other Time Agent since the program started in 1947.” There was a pride in his voice that made something rise in Alex’s chest. He couldn’t tell if it was Pavlovian pride or nausea -- or both.

Alex snapped, surprised to hear his own voice: “There’s nothing special about sleep deprivation torture.”

Flint reared back. “‘Torture’? You can’t consent to torture, Alex, and you signed on for the sleep training.”

Alex blinked, too shocked to modulate his tone: “No, I didn’t.”

Flint frowned: “The Colonel told me, the first week you came here, when you were 18, that this was a special part of your training and you’d agreed to it. Because you’re so exceptional. That your connection to the timestream was so special, it could mess you up, get you all twisted up, if you weren’t working on an efficient amount of sleep.”

Before Kyle could jump in, Alex said: “I never consented to that. Dad said I had to bunk with you and I never had a choice. I was too tired to argue.”

“We can agree to disagree on that. But something changed, right? About when you started showing up 16 minutes late.”

“We can’t agree to disagree, Flint -- what I’m saying is _true_.” He took a breath before Flint could reply. “In this timeline, you never set foot inside of Caulfield. Your mission, until the Colonel abdicated, was R&D.”

“Yes, that’s why when Kyle got the call from,” and he glanced over at Kyle, “Libya, he took it to me.”

“That day, the day you took over as Acting Director, what exactly did you think Dad was doing with me in the time chamber?” Alex said, heart feeling like it was tearing with the question, but unable to stop himself from asking it.

“What was he -- he was giving you the extra decontamination he said you needed, coming back from Sierra Leone.”

Kyle’s face was thunderous, but Alex broke in: “I was _dying_ , Flint. He was choking me to death.”

Flint reared back. “No.” He shook his head, once, hard. “No. That’s wrong and a lie and you should apologize to Dad,” his hand was hovering over his black corporate desk phone.

Alex growled: “Kyle has the audio. You _know_ that’s what really happened.”

“Would you really try and sully his legacy like that, Alex? After everything that he’s done for you --”

“After --”

“He gave up his entire life to take you on a tour around the globe, help make you the most important Time Agent in our Agency’s history. He cared for you, protected you, trained you to be exactly who you are. You owe _everything_ to him --”

Alex’s fingers were gripping the sides of his seat so hard his nails were flexing against their beds.

But Kyle’s voice was cold as ice: “And where is the Colonel, right now, Flint?”

“He’s overseeing R&D and special projects while his retirement processes out, to make sure there’s no break in continuity at this critical time.”

Alex’s breath stopped in his chest. “He,” he tried again, drawing air in what would have been a gasp if he hadn’t had decades experience pretending he could breathe when he couldn’t, “He’s still in the building?”

“Sure,” Flint said, glancing at the pin on Alex’s chest. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

“That -- that wasn’t the deal, Flint.” Alex said, voice tight in his throat. “The aliens traded you some tech and the Colonel retired.”

Flint shook his head: “You and Mom and your ‘deals.’ This is reality, Alex. Not a little kid’s game. It takes 6 to 8 weeks for a Colonel to process out of the Air Force, and you’re lucky he was willing to renegotiate his contract at the drop of your friend’s hat.” He looked to the side and then back at Alex. “Is that what this is about? You wanted to move up the family chain of command, so you needed the old man out of the way? That’s cold, even for you, Alex.”

“That’s enough.” Kyle growled, but Alex held up a hand. He stood, looking down at his brother.

“The Colonel should take a vacation,” Alex said. “He’s got the days.”

“That’s not your call, Alex. Just because he spoiled you doesn’t mean you get to jump the chain of command --”

“I’m saying he needs to uphold his end of the bargain --”

“There’s no bargaining here, he’s overseeing R&D and there’s no one else who can replace him --”

Alex’s voice was rising: “I can’t work here if he’s in the building!”

The office got really, really quiet. Alex’s heart was pounding, his throat aching with how hard he’d been pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

Flint braced a fist on a stack of loose-leaf paper on the desk, pushing himself to standing. His voice was velvet poison: “Are you threatening to quit, Alex?”

“No, I --”

“Because you’re a commissioned officer in the US Air Force. Your contract isn’t up for another 6 months. Are you planning to go AWOL?”

“No, I --”

“You already changed your place of residency without any kind of formal approval. I let it slide, because you’re always getting the extra slack in this family, but maybe I should reconsider. Maybe you falling down on your sleep training really _is_ messing you up like the Colonel said it would.”

Alex couldn’t find his words, couldn’t figure out what to --

Kyle stood: “I wrote Alex a prescription for 30 days of 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night and I’m intending to renew it for another 30. I have the prescription in my office if you need to see it. To overrule my medical orders, you’ll need to go before the Time Agency medical review board. I wonder what their perspective on the so-called ‘sleep training’ Captain Manes has been receiving would be.”

Flint glowered at him. “Why are you being so nosy, Kyle? This is none of your business.”

“Captain Manes is my patient, Sergeant Manes. He’s also my friend.”

“And you don’t think that’s a conflict of interest? Maybe I should get him reassigned --”

Kyle spoke over him: “No more a conflict of interest than you or your father commanding Alex. Your father may have had decades of relationships to secure his position as Director, but you’re still figuring out where the paperclips are in this office.” He glanced down at the pile of paper under Flint’s knuckles. “No way you want to disturb the careful work-life balance that ensures Captain Manes remains your most productive Time Agent. And given how rarely he’s physically in this building, only for missions and rare in-person briefings, it shouldn’t be too much of a logistical challenge for you to ensure the Colonel only comes in when Alex isn’t here.” He paused, kind face twisting into a sneer. “Or are you unable to give your Director of R&D orders? Are you just keeping his seat warm for him, given how little your word or his seems to mean?”

“I -- of course I can schedule him. That’s not the --”

“Great,” Kyle said, reaching over to grab Alex’s elbow and steer him towards the door. “Good talk. Bye.”

“But, Alex --”

Alex turned in the open doorway and looked Flint in the eye. “I don’t want to see him in the building when I’m in it. If I do -- if I _ever do again_ \-- I’ll turn over that audio to the Congressional oversight committee.” Flint threw up his hands. Alex’s voice had finally come back, and it was burnished steel. “Look at me, Flint.”

His brother sneered, looking to Kyle for support. He found none.

“Flint, look me in the eye and tell me you don’t believe I’ll do it. That I’ll tear down Dad’s entire legacy.”

Flint glared and smirked, but Alex held his gaze, held it and just for a moment, let his mask drop. Let all the kindness, all the justice, all the aching caring he put into the world slide away from him, and let Flint see the serpentine thing his father had carved in his own image. They were the last eyes hundreds of people had seen before they died. Flint recoiled, hand going towards his desk phone.

“I’ll give the order.”

“Good.”

Kyle followed Alex out, waiting a discrete distance before holding up his hand for a high-five. Alex knew he was being watched, knew Flint’s cameras and microphones were probably picking up every whisper of breath. But still he let a viscous grin crack across his face and gave Kyle a high-five that left his palm burning and his skin feeling alive.

\--

“So,” Rosa said, browsing the cactus section at the Santa Fe nursery, “you wanted to ask me about kissing.”

Alex flushed, squatting down carefully to look at the tag of a creosote bush. “I know how to kiss. I just --” He took a deep breath. “I haven’t, with someone I liked. Before.”

“Your job is such a shitshow. You should quit.” Rosa said flatly before leaning down to smell a bright pink flower erupting out of a barrel cactus.

“So you say every time we talk about it.”

“Yeah, well, if you wanted gentle subtlety and nudging, you would be talking to Kyle. But you asked me here. What are we looking for?”

“I’m doing research. If I get a house, I might want a garden,” _a garden to share, to grow plants in and food and flowers and --_ “but the olive I’ve been growing is just getting its first leaf above the surface, and I haven’t spent a lot of time around plants, so I wanted to get my bearings. And you have the best design sense of anyone I know, so I figured you might be able to help me build a plant list.”

“Also I’m the only one was free for an impromptu road trip to Sante Fe on half-an-hour’s notice. And the only one who's music taste is superior to everyone else's. And the only one who won't make you talk about your feelings until you want to barrel roll out of the car to avoid it.”

“Do I get credit that you were the first one I asked?”

She looked like she was considering it, then bumped her shoulder against his. “It does, chico. Ok, so, your boy, he wants to kiss you.”

“Yeah.”

“And you want to kiss him.”

“So, very, very much,” Alex said, hiding his face pretending to smell the pale blossoms of a desert-bred plum tree.

“So why all of the worrying?”

“I might mess it up!” Alex said, looking over a prickly-pear cactus whose bright purple fruit were just losing their white blooms. “I might think he’s a mission and fall into one of the characters I’ve had to use, to, to,”

“To give yourself distance, when you had to do something that’s really personal and intimate, but you had to do it on orders?” Her voice was even and sympathetic; he had to remember to ask her about therapy, if it could let her talk about this stuff that way.

“Yeah. And it’s like, if you’ve gone your whole life only speaking a language in one context, and then suddenly you have to speak it in another, every word you speak, you’ll be thinking about that other context.”

“Sounds like you need two things: to tell the boy that you’re worried about this, and to practice grounding.”

“Like for current?”

Rosa rolled her eyes, running her fingertips through a sage bush. “Come here, put your hand where mine is.” She grabbed his hand and put it in the middle of the bush. It was scratchy and the smell was bright and crisp around them.

“Ok, tell me what you feel.”

“It’s sage.”

“ _Alejandro_.” Her voice was flat and more than a little threatening; he wondered how Flint would respond if she yelled at him.

“I feel,” and he moved his hand, letting the soft leaves contrast with the rough stem. “I feel the leaves, they’re a little rubbery and powdery. The steam’s thin and flaky, like a chopstick that’s been run through the dishwasher too many times.”

“Ok, what do you see.”

 _If I say ‘sage’ is she going to glare at me again?_ “It’s green and white.”

“I’d say ivory and mint green, but good enough. What do you smell?”

Alex closed his eyes. “It’s green smelling, like the desert, like wind and -- a bit like rain.”

“Ok, and what do you hear?”

He frowned, and there, there it was -- “I can hear the leaves touching each other, and the branches cracking against each other.”

“Ok, and right now, at this very instant, are you worried about messing up kissing the boy? Or is it just a good idea you can’t wait to try out?”

Alex thought for a moment: “It sounds like a great idea. The worries, they’re -- it’s like they’re in black and white with the sound off, rather than full color IMAX blaring in surround sound.”

She nodded briskly. “That’s grounding. There’s a lot of different kinds -- body scanning, progressive muscle relaxation, little rituals -- but they’re all basically about getting you to focus on being your best self in one particular moment, rather than trying to be perfect in every moment your whirligig brain can conjure up for you.”

“Huh,” Alex said, tracing a finger down the rough stem of the sage. “That something you learned in therapy?”

“Yep,” she said, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously. 

“I,” he started, then stalled out. She pretended not to notice. “I was thinking of trying it.”

“Grounding?”

“Therapy.”

“Thank God. You need therapy as much as you need to kiss your boy. Possibly more, even.”

“How did you find a therapist you liked?”

She tilted her head to the side: “There’s like 10 in Roswell. The first was a racist, the second too busy, the third didn’t like queer people, the fourth just had a baby and was busy, and the fifth I’ve been seeing for 10 years.” She shrugged. “If she ever pisses me off, I’ll go try numbers six through ten.” She twisted her mouth: “It’s not about finding some perfect person to be your therapist. It’s about finding someone who’s professional and will meet you where you are, whose suggestions help, and who you can trust enough to try them out in your real life.”

“What if -- what if there’s stuff, like stuff from my job, that I can’t tell them? Won’t that defeat the purpose?”

Rosa slung her arm around Alex’s shoulders. “Chicito, I know you’re the literal worst at setting boundaries right now, for very good and normal reasons, but you can tell your therapist what you are and aren’t willing to talk about. They push you on it, you walk. But you can also get to it kinda sideways. Like, I would never tell my therapist about my papi’s immigration status, because I don’t need that shit getting around or written down anywhere. But boy oh boy do I have a ‘cousin’ who I’m ‘very close to’ whose status sends me into freaking panic attacks every time I see white guys in an American made white van with US Government plates.”

“Oh,” Alex said, fingers tracing the edges of a Hopi dye sunflower, the bright yellow petals ecstatic in the sunlight. “I didn’t think of that.”

“That’s because you’re just now getting to do normal growing up stuff and normal adult stuff. Don’t worry, it won’t take you nearly as long to figure it all out as it did the rest of us, because your brain is fully developed and you’re not having to deal with hormones and shit while you’re doing it. But yeah, you don’t have to tell counselors everything. And you don’t have to tell boys everything either. Just tell him you need help grounding, describe how it works, and he’ll help you out.”

“What if he thinks I’m weird and too much trouble?”

“Then fuck him, that’s what. You’re a treasure, Alex. Don’t let anyone ever let you forget it.” She took a breath. "But I don't think he will. You'll be ok, Alex. I promise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This nursery is called Plants of the Southwest and I’m growing a metric fuckton of corn/beans/squash/sunflowers from the seeds I bought there in February. That’s a technical gardening term, btw.


	24. a life taker I can’t confront

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this chapter involves the crossing through the Erez Crossing into Gaza. I took this route when I went to Gaza in 2016, so I’m describing what I personally saw with some very small exceptions. I've never had the pleasure of going to Tel Aviv, so what I describe there at the end is based off of Google Maps and what my friends tell me. I'm putting this entire mission into one chapter so if folks want to skip it, they can. I'll put a summary at the end notes. Also, I’m always happy to engage in productive conversations, but as a reminder, the more time I have to spend litigating the Peal Commission, the less time I have to spend writing chapters of this.

Alex opened his eyes into the bright white noon of the Erez crossing’s parking lot. The taxicab he knew he and the Colonel had used on his first pass through this border between Israel and Gaza was just pulling away and onto the highway. It was December 2010 and the sky was a hard cloudless blue. He stood up quickly, moving behind one of the parked cars. In what might be the most closely surveilled 365 square kilometers on the planet, he couldn’t spend even a second appearing strange or he’d be sitting out his entire mission in an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) holding tank. Trying to explain how he disappeared from their cameras in a swirl of purple, blue, and orange light was _not_ on the approved mission itinerary for disabling Hamas’s entire information network, so Alex had to be small, be quiet, and blend in.

It would be just like living with Flint again.

He had a nearly-empty backpack and no handluggage. Inside the backpack was the visa approval from Hamas; a clean passport without stamps to any country that had Arabic as an official language; a clear plastic bag with 50 memory sticks. He was going to ask the Israeli consular officers if he could get his exit visa on seperate slip of paper, but he had no idea if they would do it. If they insisted on stamping it on the pages, he’d wouldn’t be able to use this passport at any border crossing in the region. That mattered less to him now, but it had been quietly nerve-wracking his first time through here. He hadn’t brought a book of any kind, because he couldn’t think of one that both the IDF and Hamas would approve of in his collection and didn’t want to mess-up the mission just in the service of not being bored.

He took a step, scanning the baked asphalt, the surly taxi drivers, and the low white-painted concrete and blue glass with steel framing building. He tried not to look at the wall, glowering poured concrete like surrounded Camp Marlborough, like enclosed the Green Zone. He knew there were sniper’s nests perched in the watchtowers on either side of the crossing, and he didn’t need his neck prickling anymore than it already was. Something strange was floating in the sky, behind the watchtower. Waving, not flowing with the breeze, like a massive balloon, tethered high in the sky -- _spy balloon_. He took a breath. It was wavering far over the line, the border the concrete walls made.

He strode into the building, the white tiled empty gallery, the soldiers holding fully-automatic weapons in camouflage seeming to fade into the background. He reminded himself that IDF had mandated service, that these were kids who’d been conscripted, given as much a choice in how they were serving their home as he’d been. _Still doesn’t mean I like having all those guns at my back_.

He found his way to the stalls where he’d have his passport evaluated. The crossing was empty, but each of the bulletproof booths had a young person in them, seated 3 feet above his height so he had to look up to see the bored blond woman’s eyes.

After long minutes of waiting, she pressed a button inside her booth and the chest-height metal-and-glass door swung open. He stepped into the pen in front of her, eyeing the still-locked exit gate. Then he met her eyes with the best Friendly American Tourist face he could manage.

She snapped: “What is your purpose in traveling?”

He kept his face friendly: “I’m teaching a coding class at the Qattan Foundation Child Centre,” her lips twisted in disgust. “It’s for middle schoolers.”

“Why would you go into Gaza?”

“I was invited by a friend.” He thinks of the pictures he’s seen in the briefing: bright-colored finger paintings of Disney princesses, logos of Silicon Valley companies hung in a mobile over the computer lab; an auditorium with a piano and a stage full of girls singing in their first chorus. The volunteer teaching was a cover to get him through the crossing, but he fully intended to run the 3 workshops that the Habemus Tempus Institute had been promised he would.

“You have authorization from Hamas?”

He nodded, sliding the document into the eye-level slot.

She narrowed her eyes and slipped a piece of paper into his passport.

He took it, checking the paper; it was an Israeli exit visa for the Erez crossing. She looked away from him, staring at her computer. The exit gate still did not open.

He took a breath, thinking about the olive pit he was growing, how he’d seen a second small leaf on it before he’d gotten out of the house for his morning mission.

He took a deep breath, focusing his eyes just over the gate, where he could see an open space. _Not trapped, it’s just a game. It’s just a game she’s playing_.

The door swung open. “Thank you,” Alex said, stepping into the next area. His black backpack went through a scanning conveyor belt, it’s mouth big enough a 12-year-old Michael could have stood on the belt and been slotted through the machine without bending over.

There were men with guns watching and he carefully pulled up his right pant-leg. “I have a metal leg,” he said slowly.

“We’ll have to check you manually,” the man said. Alex nodded. The man waved him towards the metal detector.

He stepped through the metal detector and, as expected, it went off, screaming. A half-dozen soldiers walked towards him, guns swung in front of them. He held very, very still.

The guard walked around the metal detector; he was about as old as Michael had been the last time Alex had seen him. 

“Arms out.”

Alex held his arms out to his sides, legs spread. The guard ran his hands up the outsides of his thighs, then the insides. He ran his fingers inside the waistband of Alex’s pants, running the back of his hands down Alex’s chest, then along his sides, palms along his arms, backs of his hands down his back. Alex’s bag was rolling gently over on itself at the end of the conveyor belt as three guards looked on.

The man jerked his chin towards the end of the conveyor belt. Alex went over, standing there as a female guard, about Rosa’s age and height, opened his bag, poking and prodding inside of it. She pulled out a ziplock bag of memory sticks:

“What’s on these?”

“A copy of PyCharm so I can teach Python coding to middle schoolers even if the internet goes down. I’m only in Gaza for the day.”

She grimaced and laid it back on the bag, turning her back and leaving him to zip it closed.

He shrugged the backpack on and stepped through a dusty corridor, utterly empty. He tried to keep his breathing even, his mind calm. There were doors staggered on either side, distances between them seemingly random. There was a green light above one of them. He went to that door and opened it to find a long dark brown corridor stretching out on either side of him and a door to the outside in front of him, the high blue sky just visible through the long, narrow horizontal windows far above his eyeheight.

He tried the door; locked. His heart jackknifed in his chest. To the side of him was a turnstile through which he could see the outside, like was used to cattle on the ranches around Roswell or the IDF barricades throughout Hebron. He stepped into it, and for a long moment as it swung, he was entirely enclosed by steel bars. He couldn’t imagine trying to get through here with a large bag of any kind.

Then he was outside, but the first breath of fresh air crushed in his chest when he looked up. He knew this was coming; had known the first time too. Still, the 2 kilometer killbox that the only way into Gaza was as numbingly awful the second time as it had been the first.

He glanced over at the wall, the sniper’s nests on either side keeping him in their scope-flashing sites. He looked down the killbox, a long, straight walk on brown poured concrete, enclosed on either side with thin wire fencing and a metal roof. 

Alex started to walk.

There was rubble on either side of the walkway, the shapes of it clear that there used to be apartment buildings, houses, businesses here. His stump was beginning to ache, but he kept walking, not wanting to give the bored snipers any excuse to look any more excuses to look at him than they already had.

He tried to keep his eyes to the path; the concrete was even and smooth, though the horizontal slashes across it reminded him the ever present possibility of bullets. A little motion caught his eye at the edge of the cage and he paused, stopping. It was a yellow flower, something like a weed, something like a sunflower. The blossom of it could fit into his palm. It was stretching up from the gravely remains of apartment buildings on either side of the pathway, reaching so it’s single flower poked through the wire mesh of the walls, bright and smiling in the dry shade of the pathway.

It waved in the weak breeze; he took a breath. It waved again; he took another. Another kilometer and a half.

Alex let himself take a little bit of distance, a little bit of space in his mind, moving back so he could see himself walking. He used to do this during beatings, during firefights he couldn’t escape and just had to survive. The walk went by faster.

At the end of the tunnel cage was an open area, two taxis on the right and on the left was what passed for a Hamas-controlled passport checkpoint. Alex stepped-up onto the ankle-height wooden platform, through the scraggly rows of mis-matched plastic chairs, towards the half-dozen windows, each with a heavily bearded man hunched in beat-up office chair. There was a worn picture of Yasser Arafat. Alex presented his passport and his letter of invitation.

“Could the stamp go on a piece of paper?” Alex asked. The man grumbled and pulled out a slip of white paper, stamping it, and tucking it beside the Israeli entry visa.

“Thank you.”

Alex headed over to the cabs; he had money in US dollars, Israeli shekels, and Jordinian dinars; the driver accepted the US dollars and took him to the next checkpoint. Alex checked the backpack again; the memory sticks were still there.

He took a breath; it would be go time in just a minute. He was still a little floaty, seeing himself from a distance, reactions slow. He took another breath and tried what Rosa had taught him about grounding -- he could feel the mid-morning sun shining down bright and clear on his blue button-up shirt; he could smell the cracked leather of the seats; he could see the rubble around them, the jagged edges of the concrete that was left behind after all of the reusable building materials had been removed.

And he was back in his body, just as the car was slowing down.

He pulled himself out, entering a dingy cinderblock building, an office on one side and four large men standing around a large scanning machine on the other. In the office was a man in a suit jacket, hunting-and-pecking on the keyboard of an old desktop. The machine was the same make as the one he’d just used in the glass-and-steel building, but maybe 20 years older. He put his backpack down on the conveyor belt, glancing over at the man he assumed was the security chief. The bag slid through.

“I have a metal leg,” he said in English. The men shook their heads and he repeated it in Levantine Arabic.

They nodded and waved him around the machine. 

“Please hold your arms out,” Alex did and the man used a metal-detecting wand, moving it quickly around his body, not touching.

The bag came out the end and the man picked it up, setting it on a cracked wooden folding table. He unzipped it, finding only the bag of memory sticks.

“What are these?”

“They’re gifts for the children at Al-Qattan Foundation Child Centre. They have an application on them to help them learn to program computers.”

“We will have to check.”

Alex nodded and watched, holding back a satisfied smile, as the Hamas soldier took the bag to the man in the office. Alex stood and watched as the man carefully took one of the memory drives out and plugged it into his computer. 

Then another.

Then another.

“Is this your first time in Gaza?” The guard who’d searched his bag asked. Alex shook his head. “I was here before, it’s beautiful.”

The man nodded. They watched as the security chief plugged another memory stick in.

Alex relaxed. The mission was over, at least from the Time Agency’s perspective. The memory sticks _did_ in fact have a copy of PyCharm on them and he _was_ in fact going to spend the afternoon teaching young people how to code in Python. But slipped inside of them was a virus, subtle and swift. Hamas didn’t have so much as an anti-virus checker on most of these computers in 2010, and so in the coming months, as Hamas men emailed and moved files on zipsticks and generally had terrible security, this virus would infect every system they had. It was simple: the virus created a new admin account with root access to every computer it touched. The Time Agency had worked with the NSA to develop it and ensure they had the correct passwords to use that access. It would tell them everything from who Hamas was stealing aid food from to what Israeli towns Hamas intended to attempt to bomb, to whom among their own residents they were planning on abducting and torturing.

It seemed incredible that this would work; but 8 years before, or the day before depending on how Alex counted, he had seen it with his own eyes. His father and he had come through the crossing with a group of women engineers, there to teach a few days of classes with a group called Gaza Sky Geeks, a Google and Microsoft-funded start-up incubator in Gaza City. They had brought blank memory sticks from some tech conference to give away to engineers. Alex and the Colonel had watched in quiet horror as the security chief had gone through all 100 memory sticks and stuck them each into his own computer.

 _Stupid gonna stupid,_ Alex thought. He hadn’t needed the briefing detailing the theft, graft, kidnapping, and violence against civilians that was Hamas’s daily work, but it had all been there in the packet Flint had handed him. He didn’t know how to fix this conflict, but he knew in his bones Hamas did wrong by their people.

The memory sticks came back and Alex thanked the men, slipping the bag over his shoulder.

“Alexander Drossilof?” The woman in the bright headscarf called his name.

“That’s me -- you’re with the Qattan Foundation?”

“Yes, I’m Abeer. Nice to meet you.” She pressed her hand to her sternum. He did the same, conscious that the Hamas men might not be comfortable with Abeer’s shaking his hand.

She motioned him towards a car, getting into the passenger seat as the driver nodded to him. “I’ll just give you your orientation on the way over, will that work for you?” 

He slid into the back, nodding and thinking of the rainbow pin he’d left carefully set beside the small silver ball on his bedside table; definitely something he could not wear here.

He looked out the window and, above a pile of rubble that two men were working their way through was a bright, emerald green hill with --

“Are those prickly-pear cacti -- nopales?” He asked, and Abeer cocked her head.

“It’s called sabra -- it’s everywhere around here.”

Alex frowned a little. “I thought it was native to Mexico and the southwest.” he paused, “maybe it’s like the tumbleweed; what a region is known for even when it came from somewhere els _e_?”

She smiled: “Tumbleweeds aren’t American?” 

Alex shook his head: “No, they’re from Russia. They snuck in through agricultural shipments of seeds.”

“We’re all connected in such strange ways. Anyway, while you’re here as a guest of the Qattan Foundation, there are simple rules.” She held up one finger: “One, don’t get into any car unless its driven by this man.” The driver waved. Alex nodded.

“Two, don’t leave your hotel after 7pm or before 7am.”

“No problem.”

“And that’s it. We’ve got a busy day planned for you.” 

They passed what Alex’s eyes told him was a red ball of string the size of a 3 story building; only as it entered his peripheral vision did he realize it was what was left of an apartment building after all of the people, belongings, and cement were removed: a big tangle of rust-red rebar. Something heavy rested in his chest.

Abeer turned to him with a bright smile: “So, I heard you speaking Arabic. Where did you learn?”

Alex smiled: “Oh, I did my undergrad at Carnegie Mellon. International Relations major, and I picked Arabic as my language.”

“How do you like it?”

“It’s a beautiful language.”

She grinned at him. “So, you may hear a loud speaker announcement. It’s really unlikely, because you’ll be staying in the Almashtal Hotel which is most westerners and they don’t bomb the hotels for westerners, but if they do, you’ll probably hear an announcement like,” and she put her hands around her mouth, making her voice sound like a speakerphone recording: “You have 57 seconds to evacuate! You have 56 seconds to evacuate!” She paused, dropping her hands. “You’ll hear it in Hebrew first, then English, then Arabic. You hear that, you drop everything. You run. You get outside. I’ll find you and get you to the crossing, ok?”

He nodded, watching as a shop overflowing with colorful Chinese lanterns and bright stuffed animals came into view. They were entering the undestroyed parts of the city now, the road ahead of them beginning to fill-up with cars. And Alex was reminded, again, of the worst part of this trip from the last time. Even though the Colonel had kept him from talking to any Palestinians, he’d seen them. 1.8 million people, trapped between two borders and the surrounding Mediterrenian sea, ruled by awful men and trying to live in between bombings with US-made weapons. He’d seen them, seen their cars with silly bumper stickers and their shops full of clothes and their fishing boats in a marina made from the rubble of bombed-flat apartment buildings -- and he’d left. He’d known he’d get to leave. That he would get out.

“We’ll be there in about 10 minutes -- you want to know how you can tell an Israeli bomb from a Hamas bomb?”

“Sure?” Alex said, eyebrows lifting.

She pinched two fingers together and waved her hand in a slow arc: “Wooooooo!” Then: “BOOM!” And she threw both hands in the air as the driver glanced over with a wary grin. “That’s an Israeli bomb.” 

Then she made a Pac Man hand and retraced the same arc, biting the air with her fingers: “Rawr, rawr, rawr, rawr, pffft!” She put her hands in her lap. “That’s a Hamas bomb. You might also hear automatic weapons from across the water, the hotel is on the beach; but don’t worry, they don’t aim at the shore.”

The buildings were rising high around them, grey and white, full of families and scattered sprays of bulletholes.

“What are they aiming at?”

“Oh,” she said, glancing towards the place where the open sky slipped down towards the west. She took a breath, some of her cheerful mask falling: “The fishermen. They fish for octopus and sardines, but the Israeli Navy says they can’t fish more than 3 kilometers away from the shore. And sardines aren’t smart, but they know that they get caught in one place and not in another. So they all hangout 3.1 kilometers away from shore.” She took a deeper breath. “So, the fishermen, they go out at night. They go 3.1 kilometers away from shore. They turn on the big lights on the boat, to bring the fish to the surface. The men on the speed boats tell them to get back across the line. They pull the fish into the boat as quickly as they can. The men on the speed boats keep shooting. They come back across the line. The men stop shooting.”

“So I’ll be able to hear the shooting from the hotel?”

“Some nights,” she said, voice light. “But the view of the Mediterrenian is beautiful. And,” here she paused, looking at him carefully. “Try to look at the sky.”

“What?”

“You’ll -- you’ll start to feel trapped. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning, certainly when you go back to the crossing. You’ll feel like those concrete walls are going to fall and crush you. Like they’re closing in on you. People call Gaza the world’s largest open-air prison. It’ll feel like that sometimes; hopeless.” She smiled, something soft in her eye. “But look at the sky. You can always see a way out if you look at the sky.”

“Thanks,” Alex said, “I’ll try that.”

Al-Qattan Child Centre was a two-story building, painted in fresh white and red and yellow, like a preschool constructed on the scale of a small shopping mall. There were little kids in bright white and burgundy uniforms running around the entrance, trailed by a mix of mothers and teachers, some in headscarves in black and grey and red and blue; some with curly or bushy or slick black hair uncurled. Abeer showed Alex the computer lab where he would be teaching: just as he’d seen in his briefing packet, someone had carefully printed and cut-out the logos of major American tech companies and organizations and hung them from the drop ceiling with fishing wire. Google and Microsoft and NASA, all of them swung in the slow AC. There were a few adults kneeling on the linoleum floor, arms over the backs of the chairs of children learning to use the black plastic PC. Each looked up at him and then got back to helping the young people beside them.

Alex walked over and squatted down carefully. He held out his hand to the pre-teen hunched over the keyboard.

In Levantine dialect he said: “Hello, my name is Alex. Are you coming to my workshop today?”

“What’s it about?” He asked as he took Alex’s hand and gave a good, solid shake.

“It’s about programming computers.”

The young man’s eyes lit up: “Absolutely. Yes.”

\--

Alex gave the workshop, took a tour of the building, then taught the second round of the same workshop. Each time there were about 3 students per computer, with adults lining the back of the room and watching from the hallway. He gave away all of his memory sticks and promised to himself he would find a way to bring more next time.

He had an image, such a clear image, of one of those loudspeaker-possessing bombs landing right in the middle of the auditorium, the library, the computer lab; of these memory sticks ended-up covered in the white dust that pulverized concrete turned into, his fingerprints left among the rubble and the bodies. He tried to focus on the smiles of the children he taught, the grins from the adults he showed how to use the systems so they could continue teaching long after he crossed back over. But that imagined image -- the memory sticks in the rubble -- it stuck with him.

Abeer escorted him back to the hotel; it had originally been built before the 2006 elections as a Mövenpick and was every inch the lavish resort hotel; but because Hamas wouldn’t allow them to sell alcohol, the Swiss chain had sold it and refused to put their name on it. In the middle of the hotel was an office with a Qatari flag out front and the seal of the state of Qatar done in gold leaf and careful paint on the door; probably-Qatari investor, maybe one of Michael’s students or their parents, had bought it from the Swiss developers.

Down in the lobby, Alex saw a small arts and crafts display under glass. It wasn’t being staffed, since the hotel was nearly entirely empty, but after a bit of chatting, Alex got the front desk attendant to agree to sell him a small tile with the skyline of Gaza on it. As he drew-up the receipt, Alex’s eye was caught by some strange-looking dolls in the corner of the kiosk. They were about knee high, shaped like vases, with wide clown faces; one was wearing a lacy skirt.

He kept staring at them, something so familiar about them.

Finally, as the man was handing over his receipt, he had to ask: “Are those -- shell casings?”

The attendant glanced over and nodded: “The artist, she collected them in the last war; makes them into art. You want one?”

“I can’t imagine I could get it through the Erez crossing.”

“No,” he said flatly, looking at their grinning faces. “Probably not.”

\--

The next morning, Alex stepped out onto the balcony; the Mediterrenian stretched white-tipped and nearly purple off as far as his eye could see just across a snow white beach. Abeer had been right: looking to the horizon was really helpful in getting the knot of worry itching out of his shoulders again.

He looked to the side, to see the whole wide arch of the Gaza strip; he could almost imagine he could see the Rafah crossing that Egypt kept almost entirely closed, meaning the only way out of Gaza was through the crossing he had just taken and would be taking again in a few hours.

Then he heard the sound of bombs.

They were over to his right, to the north, close to the crossing.

A high pitched whistle, then a blast. Another high pitched whistle; another blast. 

He pulled out his phone, texting Abeer: “All ok?”

She texted right back: “They’re a few blocks away, we can continue with the day’s plan. See you for breakfast in 30 mins?” 

Alex closed his eyes. He thought about dying here. About never seeing Michael again. About him just not showing up one year, and Michael never knowing why. He thought about how few people made that crossing, how the internet was the only way so many of these kids would ever see anything beyond the 365 square kilometers of the Gaza Strip -- an area about as big as Detroit with three times the population.

“See you there.”

\--

Alex taught one more coding workshop at the Qattan Centre. At the end of the workshop, the students surrounded him, wanting to shake his hand; more than one repeated: “Don’t forget us. Remember us.”

Alex nodded, promising he would. Over and over. His heart hurt with each time he promised that. Alex let himself detach again as Abeer accompanied him to the Erez crossing on his way out. He didn’t have to go through the Hamas security screening or the passport check. The taxi just drove straight to the end of the 2 kilometer caged walkway. He got out of the taxi.

He heard the sound of bombs again, the high whistle followed by the boom -- this time they were behind him, deep in Gaza City.

“Thank you for taking the time with me yesterday and today,” he said to Abeer, trying to leave _something_ , some sense of respect, of purpose.

Her smile was uncracked as she walked him to the wire cage. “The kids really value getting to hear from an American, being heard by one. Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you,” Alex said again, feeling useless. He glanced up at the towering concrete walls surrounding Gaza, now visible 2km away. “Ma salama.”

Half a smile quirked across her face. “Ma salama.”

\--

Alex made it through the crossing, going through every single check again. His stump hurt; his face hurt from staying neutral; his heart hurt.

He had 4 more hours on his mission clock. He hailed a taxi and asked:

“Take me to Tel Aviv.”

It was a 90 minute drive and Alex paid cash. He asked the driver where he could walk around for a bit, explore in some cool, green, quiet place. He recommended Yarkon Park and spent the drive telling Alex about his childhood in Tel Aviv, the games he’d played in the rock garden, the concerts he’d heard on the open green.

He tried to ground himself on the drive as he watched the carefully terraced farms, the fantastically green plants and trees on either side, the carefully tended houses. He saw the sky scrapers of Tel Aviv rising up before him. They drove through them, to a low-running river. The driver let Alex out and he took his first free breath of the mission.

There were children playing here too, couples on colorful picnic blankets. Two men walked by him, holding hands, curving around the big pond with ducks. The smell of freshly-clipped grass rose around him. He could be in any American suburb if it wasn’t for the unceasing smell of the sea; maybe San Francisco or Los Angeles. He sat under a thick-boled shade tree, taking off his boot. He worked his bare foot into the grass, feeling the _here_ of it, the _now_.

He didn’t try to put his feelings into boxes this time. He tried to look at each of them. Disgust at how he’d been treated in the crossing, and that it must be so much worse for anyone traveling without that royal blue passport with the gold-leaf eagle on it. He felt that, _hard_. Terror and horror at the 2 kilometer caged walkway, realizing there was no way for someone with more mobility needs than he had to travel that safety. Horror for the conscripted young people watching him through sniper’s scopes on the wall. Shame at his own country’s sale of those guns, the bombs he’d heard falling. Sorrow for the children he’d met. Gladness that he’d brought them some news from the outside. Shame that he’d left them again. Disgust at Hamas’s violence and bad governance. Irritation that he was having to sort through these feelings rather than getting to focus on seeing Michael, on what they’d agreed to talk about, to try.

And, it wasn’t like those feelings went away for him having seen them. Knowing them in their full forms. But when he looked back up across the muddy waters of the pond, he didn’t feel as hunted by them; he didn’t feel like he was preparing for an ambush.

Maybe they would come for him in the night; maybe they would be waiting for him just on the other side of the timestream. But in this instant, in this bare moment, he could hear himself think. He could feel his hands on the grass, his foot in it. He could smell the sea. 

And he could remember what he had seen.

\--

When he only had a minute left on his mission clock, Alex put his boot back on and stood, moving between the large shade tree and the bushes that surrounded it. As the fierce lights of the timestream began to pour from the device in his chest, he felt a warm flutter in his stomach. He leaned back into it, and this time, for the first time in his life, it didn’t feel like a boot to the chest, it didn’t feel like he was being hauled backwards by hard hands: falling into the timestream felt like a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For folks who wanted to skip this chapter to spare their spoons, since fiction depicting any part of Israel and Palestine can be really hard for people to read, here's a summary of the details that may come up later. Alex visits Gaza in December 2010 and gets Hamas to infect their own computers with spyware that the NSA and the Time Agency designed using some memory sticks. He then teaches programming classes at a community center in Gaza, which was both his cover and something he enjoys doing. The experience of going through the Erez crossing (the only open land border between Gaza and the rest of the world) is harrowing, bizarre, and Alex disassociates for a good portion of it. Israel bombs Gaza while he is there and Alex hears the bombs falling. He buys a small tile depicting the Gaza skyline to give to Michael. He goes to Tel Aviv and has a nice walk in a park.
> 
> More comments:  
> The thing with the memory sticks happened exactly that way on my way into Gaza in 2016 (not the virus part, but the part with them sticking the memory sticks in their computers). Hamas is both incompetent and terrible. Gaza Sky Geeks is a Google-funded start-up incubator and wasn’t founded until 2011, so I backdated it a little for this story. They are freaking amazing and I love them. No one I know in Gaza is named Abeer, but her character is a mix of two of my friends; I do have a different friend in Hebron named Abeer who is a total badass. Al-Qattan is also how I depicted it -- when I was there, we taught workshops on how motherboards work and played with the little kids there. It’s a beautiful place. I hope it doesn’t get bombed flat.
> 
> As I mentioned in a prior chapter, I'm going to be really free with the delete button if I see anti-semitism or anti-Palestinian stuff going on here. Criticizing governments is one thing, but a lot of people in this region don't get any say in who rules them, and even those who do may spend decades under the rule of parties they do not support. I know for a fact there are readers who as Palestinian and readers who are very close to Israel, so please assume (as I always do) that your words will be read by people for whom this conflict isn't a random news story or something to have a theoretical opinion about, but a blood-and-bone, life-and-death reality. So, be tactful and thoughtful and your best selves here.
> 
> Or just comment on the next chapter, which has delightful smut. Whatever works for you!


	25. Oh yeah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're earning our rating here! Also I also upped the chapter count, because it seems like each arc is taking an average of 2 chapters, and there's a set number of arcs.

Alex opened his eyes to a floor-to-ceiling, multi-paned window looking out across an alley at the blank brick wall of a warehouse. His back was to a low bed on a boxspring and the Pittsburgh sunset was beginning to glow on the horizon, red and orange and bronze-brilliant. The smell of stewing posoles drifted over the black bookcases protecting the sleeping area. Alex took a deep breath, letting the sound of Michael singing as he cooked surround him for a moment:

> _“I wanna see you_ _  
> __As you are now_ _  
> __Every single day_ _  
> __That I am living”_

He had a warm baritone now, and Alex could tell he had the song long memorized. Alex looked around as he stood -- here was the messy bed; there were two healthy young olive trees in big terra cotta pots leafing out against the far wall, turning towards the light; there was a shelf mounted to the red brick wall with the books, the trinkets, a glass jar of the Yemeni honey, the cedar puzzle box, the Altoid case. The star charts covering the wall all the way up to the high industrial ceiling. The saddle blanket from Oman was swirled amidst the blue-grey blankets, like Michael slept with it. Alex pulled the art tile from Gaza out of his bag, laying it carefully amidst the fallen leaves of the olive tree.

The drums were rising and Michael’s voice rising along with them:

> _“What if the storm ends?_ _  
> __And I don't see you_ _  
> __As you are now_ _  
> __Ever again?”_

Alex moved carefully around the bed, stump aching from crossing. He saw Michael around the corner and had to pause, to take a breath. His shoulders were broader than when he’d seen him last, and his hair had grown out, golden curls in the low lamplight. He was sitting on the counter wearing the same white henley he’d worn in Doha, hunched over a textbook spread open across his lap, kicking his bare feet idly against the cabinets in time with the drums, worn-out jeans showing the fine lines of his ankles. There was a long wooden spoon stirring posoles in the pot on its own, and a spatula flipping chocolate-chip cookies off of a baking tray onto a wire cooling wrack; there was a rice maker gently steaming in the corner. Alex’s heart felt like it was going to pound right out of his chest.

> _"But now it's found us_  
>  _Like I have found you_ _  
> __I don't wanna run_ _  
> _Just overwhelm me"

He stepped around the corner of the bookcase, boots solid on the floor, heart beating copper under his tongue. One step; a second; a third. Michael looked up, eyes catching Alex’s and flooding with the kind of heat that could scald or turn clay into china that would last ten thousand years. Alex took another step and Michael set his textbook aside. Another step and Michael’s hands flexed on his thighs, but he stayed sitting on the counter. Another step and Michael licked his lips, eyes never leaving Alex’s. Alex felt his heart thump in time with the music, breathing matching Michael’s. He covered the remaining distance in seconds -- his hands were in Michael’s hair, gripping tight against the back of his neck, Michael’s arms banding around his shoulders pulling him in, ankles locking tight around his hips, all fervent fire, all untamed want -- but still they paused, they hovered, lips apart for a long, excruciating second as they met eyes. Michael nodded and Alex nodded in return, breathing ragged and heavy between them.

And then they were kissing, Alex’s lips pressing tight and whole against Michael’s soft mouth, a small sound coming from his chest as he moved even closer. Michael braced himself on Alex’s shoulders, sliding to the very edge of the counter so their bodies were pressed in a long line from hips to sternums. Alex’s fingers were tracing impossible signs through Michael’s curls, trying to memorize every sensation, every touch, every gasping breath. And Michael -- his hands were _everywhere_ , tracing every knob of Alex’s spine, gripping the muscles of his shoulders, sliding along the strong lines of his neck and deep into his thick black hair, every motion, every touch more than Alex could take and not nearly enough.

The rice cooker dinged and Alex pulled back, laughing as Michael tried to follow him, trying to get one more kiss.

“It’ll keep, come back here,” and Alex leaned in again, avoiding Michael’s mouth to taste the warm skin of his throat. Michael tipped his head back with a groan, holding onto Alex’s shoulder for dear life, as Alex followed the big tendon from his collarbone up to just into the stubble under his jaw, down to his bobbing adam’s apple and to the other side, pressing his lips just behind his ear. Michael nudged Alex back to center, demanding a kiss and Alex gave it, grinning fiercely against his mouth as Michael licked his way inside, tongue slick and tasting of home. Alex’s heart was running a race and he was sweating and he honestly had no idea if he’d ever felt better in his life. 

After a long moment, Michael let him pull back, grinning like he could light the sun from the inside.

“Hi,” he said, pressing a kiss to Alex’s forehead, like now they’d started he couldn’t stand to not be kissing him.

“Hi,” Alex said, grinning back. “I left my present by the olive trees. I talked to my friend about how to find a counselor. My olive has two leaves above the soil. My brother is a terrible asshole and the governments in the Middle East are universally worse than their citizens deserve. Do we have anything else we need to talk about?”

Michael blinked, like he was struggling to connect words to concepts. “We should set a timer; don’t want you arriving in the Time Agency with a boner.”

Alex snickered and nodded, pulling out his phone.

“Ew, iPhones get massive in the future. The 4S just came out -- it’s October 2011, in case you’re keeping track.”

Alex paused, looking Michael in the eye: “I keep track of every single detail of these times together. I always have and I always will. You’re important to me, Michael.” He set the timer; they had 13 more minutes and they could use 10 of them to make-out. He showed the countdown to Michael.

“Oh, I know that,” Michael said blithely, fingers tracing a path from Alex’s collarbone to his neck. “But just because my love language is remembering things and presents and touch doesn’t mean yours is.”

Alex reached up, cupping Michael’s cheek in his palm as the man catted into it, eyes closing and lips parting. Alex tried trace every line of that gesture, tattoo it some permanent place where nothing could remove it. His voice was quiet; “I don’t know my love language. But I want to find out. With you.” Michael nodded, eyes still closed, leaning closer and pressing his lips to Alex’s. 

This time was slower, like they were passing some kind of truth between them with each swipe of their tongues, each press of their lips. Michael’s skin was starting to smell warmer, sharper; he smelled better than any other person Alex had ever touched, like living water, like sharp rain in the desert sage, turning the dust to running life. He tried to press everything he wanted to say into his kiss, his hands on Michael’s well-muscled back, how he responded to every movement, every lead Michael threw him.

Michael squirmed closer, and Alex suspected he was using his powers to keep himself from slipping off the counter entirely.

“Want to take this somewhere else?”

“Yeah?” Michael asked, eyebrows going up.

“Yeah.” Alex said, checking his phone. Another 7 minutes.

“Then yeah.”

Alex moved back so he could slip off the counter and he flowed down, filling the space between them, moving into Alex to kiss him again, foot between his and hand on his lower back, pressing their bodies tight together.

“Just to be clear,” Michael whispered as he pulled away to catch a breath, “We’re not going for the gold in 7 minutes. I want to take my time with you.”

Alex nodded, breath light and happy in his chest: “Just a good, old fashioned make-out session.”

“First base only?”

“I didn’t grow up in countries with baseball,” Alex said, pressing a kiss to the corner of Michael’s mouth. “You’re going to have to tell me what you want.”

Michael’s eyes rolled back a little as he gave a shuddery breath. “What I want -- what I want, Alex, is something we don’t have time for. But we will. One day, we will.” He took a more controlled breath. “Making out in the bed, pants stay on. Mostly above the waist. Work for you?”

“What I want isn’t something we can get done in this time either, but that sounds perfect, Michael. You’re perfect.”

Michael wrapped himself around Alex, arms banding tight and holding him as he kissed him again, and it would have been trapping, would have been scary, with anyone else; but here, it was like some part of Alex’s brain unlatched, unhinged itself. A hidden shim in the puzzle box, opening him up in ways he’d never known he could open.

“Bed. Now.” Alex said, dragging Michael by the hand as Michael laughingly followed.

They rounded the corner and Michael paused, the glimmering sunlight haloing his hair. “I want to try something.”

He looked over at the bed, hands wrapped around Alex’s, and the blue-grey blanket shivered off to the floor, the red saddle blanket laying itself out flat and neat across the entire queen bed.

Alex cocked his head and Michael answered: “I want it to smell like you. Like us.”

Alex’s heart tripped in his chest and he whispered, “Oh, Michael.”

Michael tugged his hand, kneeling on the bed with his hands out, giving Alex something to brace against if he needed it, but not pushing. Alex gripped his shoulder for balance, lowering himself to kneel beside him. They crawled up the bed, chuckling at their own awkward bodies, as Michael lay on his left side and Alex lay beside him, fitting his arm under Michael’s cheek, the warm trusting weight of him making Alex feel taller than mountains. Michael closed his eyes, rolling his hips forward until they were bare inches from Alex’s and Alex slid his thigh over his hips, welcoming his body into the warm core of him.

Michael gasped at the contact, amber eyes flying open as he closed the distance between their lips, hands running fire down Alex’s chest, palming his pec, backs of his hands over his stomach, sweeping around his hip to grab his ass, grind against him. Alex groaned into his mouth and Michael chased that sounds, chased it back into his mouth and slid his hand into Alex's back pocket to get that closer, ground forward again until Alex made it again.

Alex slid his hand down Michael’s side, fingertips finding the gap between his shirt and his belt, shaping the line in a long, smooth movement, Michael’s skin hot and smooth. He moved his fingers just a little up his back, finding the dimples at the base of his spine and fitting his fingers into them, tracing their dips and then up his spine, feeling his shirt gather around his arm as he memorized the entire long, slow curve of his back.

“Alex,” Michael gasped into his mouth, hand moving to his hip. “Alex.”

“I’m here,” Alex said, flatting his palm against Michael’s upper back, pressing himself even closer. “I’m here.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, mouth quirking into a grin against Alex’s lips. “Yeah.”

Alex leaned forward, pressing his forehead tight against Michael’s. “If I could be anywhere in the world, any time, I would be here, right now, with you.”

Michael’s whole body moved impossibly closer to Alex’s, breath catching. “Yeah, me too.” 

Alex kissed the hot pulse fluttering in the big vein in Michael neck as he smoothed his hand down Michael’s back, first with his fingertips, then with his knuckles, then with his palm, each movement catching Michael’s breath in his chest, feeling his pulse speed up just that little bit more against his tongue.

“When we see each other next,” he heard him said, felt him say against his lips, “What do you want to do?”

“Hmm,” Alex said, “Assuming I’m not saving you from a drunken three on one alleyfight with Nazis or bleeding out on your floor?”

“Assuming both of those, yes,” and Alex could feel the chuckle in his chest before it reached his throat and didn’t know if he ever wanted to feel anything else ever again.

“I’ll want to hear how you are. Hear about your research, your family. I’ll want to tell you about my trip.”

Michael pulled back, narrowing his eyes: “Just that?”

Alex held his gaze impassively for a long moment, breathing still erratic. Then he cracked: “No, not just that.”

Michael met his grin: “So, what’s next then?”

“Hmm,” Alex said, sliding his hand around to Michael’s front, working his hand up his chest, cupping one of his pecs and sweeping a thumb across his nipple as Michael bit out a curse, panting against Alex’s hair.

“I’d like to see more of you, next time. Get to touch more of you.”

“Okay,” Michael breathed. “Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

“And,” Alex said, “I think we should decide each time, when we see each other. We won’t know what kind of day the other’s had, what they might need." He took a hard breath, and made himself say: "I might need help, grounding. Not getting lost in my head. I’ve, I’ve not always had good experiences, with physical stuff.” Michael just nodded, face open and gentle, saying nothing. “So I don’t always know what I’ll be up for. But I think we can talk about it, each time.”

Michael took a long breath. “That makes sense. I think I was just looking for some intelligence for my spank bank.”

Alex cracked up: “The words that come out of your mouth, Michael.” Then he had an idea.

“Let me up, I can make a donation.”

Michael gave a shocked chuckle, sitting up and giving Alex room to do the same, the red saddle blanket twisting under their hips, their knees pressing together. Alex looked him dead in the eyes and undid the first button on his shirt.

“Can I help?” Michael asked and Alex nodded. He started where the bottom of the shirt pooled in Alex’s lap, knuckles brushing Alex’s cock through his jeans as Alex stifled a gasp.

Alex muttered: “I’m going to need to review so many conjugations to be in proper form by the time I get back.”

Michael smirked: “I used to do the periodic table of elements when I had to be presentable for dinner," Michael said, backs of his knuckles brushing over Alex's stomach and making it jump against the contact. He kept talking: "Usually after spending a little too long watching that one scene where Milla Jovovich takes out those Judoon-looking things in _Fifth Element,_ when the blue-tentacled diva sings her big aria. When she’s wearing those orange space-suspenders?”

“You liked _Fifth Element_?”

“Yeah?” Their fingers met in the middle of Alex's chest, Michael’s hands gripping Alex’s for just a moment. He whispered: “Let me,” as he eased the blue shirt off of Alex’s shoulders, Alex rolling them back to help, letting Michael find his wrists and free them.

“I didn’t think you’d like scifi where the human is the good guy.”

Michael slid Alex’s shirt out from behind him. “Now what?”

“Now you," he said, plucking the bottom of his henley. "I’ll leave my shirt and wear yours home. They wash the shit out of anything I bring back, but at least we’ll have something of each other’s to wear to bed.”

Michael leaned forward to press a kiss to Alex’s lips, murmuring against him: “I knew you were a genius but that’s some next-level stuff.”

Alex leaned back to watch his body arch as he pulled his white henley off, his stomach muscles flexing and his arms stretching high above his head. Alex reached up to gather his shirt from his hands and for a moment their fingers were tangled in the body-hot cloth between them. There was something about touching his clothes, still hot from his body, that made Alex’s stomach curl and twist in a sweet way.

Michael looped back to the previous thread: “I mean, Bruce Willis isn’t my type, but I don’t think the question of why I would get turned on by an ass-kicking murder-hottie born in a pod is a particularly complex one. Human sexuality is diverse and complex, but it’s not always hard to figure out where some kinks come from.” He gave Alex a teasing grin, folding his blue shirt carefully. Alex slipped Michael’s henley over his head, breathing in the warm petrichor scent of him.

Alex’s phone alarm went off and he silenced it, slipping it back in his pocket. “Three minutes to cool down.”

“Hmm,” Michael said. “Want to try some of my posoles? Isobel brought the peppers from home when she came to visit.”

“Sure,” Alex said, accepting a hand up as Michael moved off the bed. “How’s Isobel doing?”

“She’s good!” Michael said brightly, hand still tight around Alex’s own as they walked across the loft. “Junior in college, studying business. Still a battle-femme badass.”

“She’s ok after the thing with the crazy guy who’s in Libya now?”

Michael waved his hand, two lab stools flying over to land in behind them as he picked up a chocolate chip cookie with his fingers. He held it up to his mouth and Alex took a bite, humming with pleasure. It was dark, bitter chocolate, warm and buttery and not too, too sweet.

“She is,” Michael said. “She got some therapy, took a lot of self-defense classes; I think it helps knowing her Mom is keeping an eye on him in his rehabilitation.”

“‘Her Mom’?” Alex asked, reaching over to snag a cookie and holding it up for Michael. Michael held eye contact as he wrapped his mouth around it, taking a massive bite before nearly choking and having to cover his mouth while he recovered.

“Yeah, turns out we’re like, cousins? Or something? It’s not super clear. In their culture, our culture, we don’t put a lot of stock in blood being what makes a family real, so they don't feel the need to clarify. It’s about love and commitment and healthy relationships.”

“I wish I knew what that was like. I feel like I’m flying blind here.” Alex said, holding out the cookie. Michael took a smaller bite and smiled.

“We’ll figure it out. We can ask each other questions, keep an eye out if there’s issues.” He shrugged. “It’s not like people with perfect childhoods are great at this stuff either. Marie and Jared showed me relationships are about work, trust, connection.”

Alex smiled and ate the last of MIchael’s cookie, ignoring his outraged squawk. He glanced down at his watch: 26 seconds.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said, sliding off of his stool and stepping back. Michael waved his hand, Alex’s backpack gliding over towards them from where he’d forgotten it beside the bed. 

Once it was in Alex’s arms, he stepped into him, pressing a long, hard kiss against his mouth, bruising hard, hard enough that when he stepped back, Alex could still feel it on his lips.

“I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

Alex took three big steps away and held Michael’s eyes, held them as long as he could, as the timestream flowed around him, gentler than it had ever felt before, and tipped him back into the growing blue light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Michael sings is "The Lightning Strike (What If This Storm Ends?)" by Snow Patrol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0BDS0-ZwOw
> 
> Here's the scene from _The Fifth Element_ Michael was describing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ykH3EA_Zgk


	26. somebody’s cold one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The biggest thanks in the entire world to Manesalex for the freaking amazing playlist and moodboard they made for this fic -- I’m so excited about it and everyone should go and listen! https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/620151572272431104/manesframe-my-love-is-a-life-taker-ive-been

Alex blinked into the cold light of the time chamber and scanned the room. The 13 people in the United States who decided on US-Israel and US-Palestine policy were all there with their staffers, staring up at him on the glass-and-steel-enclosed platform. Alex waved, then made a decision, packing away every soft feeling he’s just had. He approached the glass wall that separated him from the crowd. Flint had been hob-knobbing in the corner with the senior Senator from New Jersey but had seen Alex move and was now speed-walking to the microphone. Before he could get there, Alex raised his voice:

“I wish I could join you all, to tell you what I saw, give you the on-the-ground view of one of the most important missions I’ve ever been on for this region. Unfortunately, the decontamination process requires this room to be cleared.”

Congressman Joe Wiltson of South Carolina raised his hand, calling back to Alex through the glass: “We would be happy to wait for you in the reception room.”

Alex ducked his head, keeping his face neutral. “I’m afraid I won’t be dressed for the occasion,” he leaned down, knocking his knuckles on his prosthetic: “The Erez crossing was a long walk and I’ll need to be on my crutches.”

The Congressman’s face bloomed at the chance to publicly honor a veteran: “We would be honored to sit down with you, sir.”

Alex looked from him to the other attendees: all nods, all quiet respect -- or at least, the performance of it.

“Thank you, I would be glad to join you all.”

He met Flint’s eyes. They were sparking. Flint spoke into the microphone: “If the honored members would join me in the reception room, Captain Manes must go through the decontamination process,” he paused, voice flattening, “after which point, he will be joining us for our lunch.”

The black-suited mob wandered towards the tall steel doors. Once they had sighed shut behind the last loafer, Alex carefully lifted Michael’s henley over his head, folding it into his go box before sitting on the stool Kyle had made sure was in the time chamber and beginning to remove his boots. 

Once the decontamination process was over and Alex was on his crutch, Alex walked down the ramp, nodding to Kyle before approaching one of the lab techs.

“Hey, Marcie, right?”

“Y-yes, Captain Manes?” 

She was young, red hair cut in a Gillian Anderson bob. She’d been one of the few to make eye-contact with him when he’d stepped out of the time chamber with his rainbow pin on the mission prior.

“I had a request; I believe Dr Valenti will be able to help us as well if we need it, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“Uh, how can I help?” She was blushing.

Alex smiled, shifting his weight on his crutch, cocking his head: “Would it be possible to get some dressing screens, like shoji, for the time chamber, so I don’t have to strip in front of the entire room in the future?”

Her eyes flared wide and he thought, _bingo_. 

“We, uh, we need to be able to see into it when you arrive. In case, uh, in case you’re injured.”

“Of course, sure, but once that’s been confirmed, there’s no _medical_ need for me to be exposed to the entire room, is there?”

“Uh, I don't think so --”

“And it would help save the time of our important guests, if they didn’t all have to leave immediately for me to go through decontamination.”

“I guess --”

“Great!” he said, patting her shoulder, and moving towards the steel doors.

“What -- what’s -- what’s a ‘shoji’?”

“Oh,” Alex said, pausing, dropping his bulldozer act for a moment. “It’s the rice paper screens people use in Japan to add privacy between rooms.”

“Oh!” Marcie said. “Cool. I didn’t know that.”

Alex gave her a real half-smile then, feeling a little bad for hitting her over the head with what he hoped had come across as charm and not bullying. “They fold up and are really fast to move around a room, and they look good, so they won’t interfere with any of the processes. You could also use the wooden screens some mosques and synagogues use to divide women and men’s areas -- a jali or mechitza respectively. Those are heavier though, since they’re usually carved from wood.”

“That makes sense. I never really understood why Time Agents had to get naked in front of everyone after every mission, it always seemed kind of embarrassing -- not that there’s anything wrong with how you look -- not that I look --” And then she shut her mouth, looking around at the older lab techs who were watching her out of the corners of their eyes.

Alex tried to get them back on track: “Well, we can make all that easier with some room dividers. Just because things have always been one way, doesn’t mean there isn't a better way to do them, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, and this time, her blush was fading and she was giving him a real smile too. 

She headed back to her station and Kyle sidled up to him. “What was that all about?”

Alex shrugged, adjusting his soft Air Force shirt. “I asked for screens to be put up when I’m changing on future missions.”

“Yeah?” Kyle said, eyes lively.

Alex nodded: “I thought I -- and the other Time Agents too -- deserved a little privacy. There’s no good reason we have to strip in front of our coworkers, and it makes it harder to talk to the people who benefitted from the missions, who come to watch us return.”

“Yeah, Alex, it does,” Kyle said, a little wonderingly. “I’m really proud of you for asking for that, and for getting that change made.”

Alex smiled and then glanced at the big steel doors. “Want to come with me to the reception?”

Kyle shook his head with a big dramatic motion: “You couldn’t pay me enough to talk to Congress critters.” He gave a mock shudder. “I can’t breathe for all the slime in there. Do you know who they are?”

Alex counted them off on his fingers: “The Chairman and the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; the Chair and the Ranking Member of the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Ranking Member is the one who spoke up, Congressman Wiltson. The Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; the Chairman and the Ranking Member of that committee’s Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism; three staffers from the White House who came up through the campaign and are the President’s main Middle Eastern policy crew; the Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and the Undersecretary for Political Affairs from the US State Department. That’s Clara Power, the one with the red hair.”

Kyle frowned: “Did I hear two different terms for the Middle East in there? Middle East, Near East --”

“Some people also call it ‘West Asia.’ Why do you think I just call it ‘the region’?” Alex asked with a smirk.

“Can’t even decide on what to call it, no wonder it’s messed up.”

Alex frowned. “That’s not fair. It’s the English-language terms that are messed up, people there just call it ‘The Middle East’ or ‘The Middle East and North Africa’ and don’t worry about it. It’s like certain kinds of people outside of Indian Country tying themselves up in knots about whether to call a Diné person Indian or Native American or First Nations or Indigenous. Most people actually in the community don’t stress about it too hard, at least in New Mexico.”

“Ok, fine. I’m just crabby from some stuff that happened while you were gone.”

“Is everything ok?”

“Yeah, it’ll be ok in a few weeks. Anyway, I’m not even sure who _my_ Congressman is, how do you know all of their titles?”

Alex gave half a smile, deciding not to push Kyle on what was wrong; he wasn’t the only one who deserved privacy. He answered: “They’re the ones who set the policy that shapes every single one of my missions in the Middle East, who decide if I live or die while doing my job.” Kyle looked really serious for a moment, then Alex tilted his head. “Also, their names, faces and titles were in my briefing. The guest list always is, along with a face book of attendees. It’s meant to motivate me, to remind me of why I’m doing this work, who I serve.”

“Ok, but you’re not usually raring to talk with them after missions. You usually just want to go home and sleep. Did something happen in Gaza?”

Alex shook his head, careful of the microphones and cameras littering the room. “No. I’ve just never had energy to do this part of the job, and now I do, so I’m doing it.”

“I’m glad, Alex. Your sleep prescription is already paying off.” Kyle said, nudging his shoulder. “You remember I’m spending the afternoon helping Mom with the garage then having family dinner with Arturo, Rosa, Liz, and her tonight?”

“Yep, and I won’t try to make maqluba unsupervised again,” Alex said, with a lightly teasing smile.

“Good.” Kyle said, mock seriously. Then he paused, tilting his head: “We didn’t talk about the meeting with Flint -- it was really intense. I had to have a whole cupcake about it. I’ll be back late, but tomorrow morning, during the run or after, if you want to chat, I’m around.”

“Thanks,” Alex said. “I appreciate it. Tonight, I'm looking forward to some quiet time alone.”

 _Quiet time, and time to explore some ideas of things I can do with Michael_.

“Well, have fun with the critters.”

Alex nodded, swinging himself around to the steel doors. He braced on one side, pulling the door handle open to reveal the plush reception room he’d only ever entered before under physical threat. In the time before, one wrong word, one wrongly _perceived_ word, in front of the wrong person had been all it took for the Colonel to correct -- _abuse_ whispered a voice that sounded like Kyle -- him in the past. But the Colonel wasn’t here; wasn’t even _allowed in the building_ while Alex was here. He took that knowledge and wrapped it around him as a shield as he moved into the be-suited crowd.

He started with the Representative from South Carolina: white, short-cropped hair, hunter’s tan, 100% NRA approval rating. Alex held out his hand: “I’m Captain Manes."

“Pleasure to meet you. Congressman Joe Wiltson.” He had a strong drawl and quickly assessing eyes. “I requested entry to Gaza on my last junket, but State said the security situation was too precarious. How was it for you?”

“Well,” Alex said, “I was there in 2010, so it was a little different.”

“I hear that, before your mission, there was an entire second war in 2014?”

Alex blinked, smiling: “I’m glad to hear it didn’t happen in this timeline. Let me guess, the unity government with Fatah held and Hamas lost power?”

Congressman Wiltson nodded, smiling: “So you really do remember entire different timelines?”

“Yeah, it’s a skill.”

Wiltson patted him on the shoulder: “Better you than me; I have enough to remember without keeping track of casualty counts of wars that never happened.”

“Do you want to know how many died, in the 2014 war? It was in my briefing, so I’ve got it in here for now.” Alex said, tapping the side of his head.

Wiltson smiled a little, shifting his weight: “Why not. Hit me.”

“1,600 Gazan civilians and 6 Israeli civilians were killed. 18,000 Gazan homes and 1 Israeli home were destroyed. 550 Gazan children killed and 1 Israeli child killed.”

“It’s an asymmetrical conflict,” he said in a keeping-the-peace voice.

Alex gave half a smile: “Yeah, but both sides could say that. Israel faces a hostile Arab League of 22 countries, plus Iran. Those are some terrifying odds.”

“Do you have an opinion on how to resolve the conflict?”

Alex took a breath, looking around. “Not speaking for the Time Agency, since we’re bound by the Hatch Act not to engage in politics?”

Wiltson smiled: “Of course.”

Alex nodded saying: “I believe in focusing on what the people with the most skin in the game say they want. Most Israelis and most Palestinians say they want a return to the 1967 borders with limited land swaps. Extremely limited, in some cases. The settlements are massive and growing -- close to a million people living in them, depending on how you count. About 9 million Israeli citizens, about 5 million Palestinians still hanging on in the West Bank and Gaza combined. A million here or there is a big deal.”

“I toured some of them -- beautiful places. Lots of families, little ones running around in olive groves.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah, it’s going to be incredibly painful giving land back that they feel attached to.”

Wiltson’s eyes were shrewd: “One of my staffers might say it was incredibly painful watching their homes bulldozed to build those beautiful places.”

“That’s certainly what Rachel Corrie’s family would say.”

The Congressman nodded. “I watched the video. She was just a kid.”

“So was the man driving the bulldozer. So were the people living in the house before it was bulldozed along with her. It’s a big, complicated mess. But I do think focusing on what the people who actually have to live with the consequences say and think is the right approach, even though very few of them are constituents of anyone in this room.”

Wilston smiled and reached into his back pocket, pulling out a sheaf of cards, gold House of Representatives logo embossed on the front. “If you’re in DC sometime in the future, come on by my office. We’ve got the best peanuts in the Longworth building. Much better than _anyone_ from the Georgia delegation.”

Alex took a card, flexing the stiff paper between his fingers. “I will. Are you staying in town for long?”

He checked his analog watch: 12:31pm. “My flight out is tomorrow morning. I’ve got some briefings on the next few missions and new technology for this Agency, then meeting with some mining concerns who operate both in New Mexico and back home. Any suggestions for where to get a bite to eat for dinner?”

“Sure,” Alex said. “There’s a great place called Crashdown in downtown.”

“This place is all alien puns, isn’t it,” Wiltson said, pulling out his phone to take a note.

“Well, all of the Time Agency’s tech came from the aliens, so all the kitsch comes from a place of truth.”

The man looked up, assessing Alex: “Have you ever met one of them? The aliens?”

Alex shook his head: “No, they were all released to Libya when I was a toddler. I’ve never had a mission there.”

“I did,” the Congressman said. “On a junket to Libya in 2012, with then-Secretary Clinton. I met this incredible woman, their ambassador, Nora Truman. She’s my mother’s age and still nearly tore the translator to pieces when she tried to speak French rather than the local Berber dialect on one of the tours. Said it was disrespectful to the women whose robot workshop we were visiting, to use a European language rather than their own. Then she stepped in and translated the rest of the tour herself.”

Alex tucked that moment away in his heart, knowing he wanted to tell Michael.

He kept his voice easy and certain: “She sounds like a powerful leader.”

The Congressman nodded: “She is,” he paused, rolling his wedding ring around his finger. “In your unofficial opinion, how do you think we could get to be closer allies with them? I understand an elder generation of our leaders mistreated them and their ancestors badly, which is why they no longer call America their home. But we could benefit extraordinarily -- the whole world could -- if we could collaborate on future projects like this,” and he waved his hand back towards the lab with the time chamber.

Alex’s eyes flared, searching the Congressman’s face for some sign he was anything but in-earnest. The man seemed genuinely curious and Flint was on the other side of the room, bending a White House aide’s ear. He said: “I think they deserve control over their own technology. If we could see our way to having one of them working here in a senior role, preferably as Director, that level of control could help them feel safe enough to help. If they set the direction, working with the Congressional oversight committees.”

The man nodded, a strange look on his face. “I’ve heard that idea once today already, and it’s not a bad one. It might take a long time, but people have been arguing for the 1967 borders since 1967, so sometimes good, hard ideas take some time.”

“Tombstone by tombstone,” Alex said, and Wiltson frowned.

“What?”

“‘Science advances tombstone by tombstone,’” Alex repeated. “It’s the idea that sometimes the only way to move the world is to wait for those who built the last version to shuffle off.”

The Congressman rolled his shoulders, beginning to eye the drinks table with its cold sweating Heinekins: “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t take that long. I’d like to see more advances before I lose this seat to the next guy or gal.” His smile crystallized on his face: “Speaking of, Madam Undersecretary, how can I help you?”

“Congressman -- you’ve been monopolizing Captain Manes here. Let the poor man get some lunch.” The Clara Power, the US State Department’s Undersecretary for Political Affairs, had waist-length fiery red hair that Alex recognized from her book on preventing genocide; it had been one of the first Flint had thrown away.

“It was a pleasure speaking with you, Captain.”

Alex shook his hand: “You as well.” Alex tucked his card into his pocket before turning to follow her to the table piled high with sandwiches.

Once they were out of earshot, Alex murmured: “Did I send out an SOS I didn’t know about?"

“You looked like you needed saving.”

“I mean, he and I aren’t going to agree on a range of topics, but he wanted to know about my mission and I’m always happy to talk about that.”

“Good,” she said, grabbing a handful of mini-cupcakes with red-white-and-blue sprinkles and piling them on her china plate with a thin gold plating on the rim. “I liked how you worked your way into the room -- you’re not usually allowed in here?”

Alex narrowed his eyes, answering carefully as he selected a sandwich: “I’ve been at these receptions before.”

She rolled her eyes. “But as a prop, right? Like how NGOs use their clients for donors to ooh and aah at. Not a thinking, rational creature with his own opinions.”

Alex’s eyes flared and he took a bite of his sandwich. She happily grabbed a cookie, adding it to her plate. When he’d swallowed, he said: “I don’t know what to say to that.” He accepted a bowl of chips and chili verdi from one of the servers and munched on it as they headed to a highboy in the corner of the room.

She paused: “Sorry. My mouth gets me in trouble sometimes. I mean, not at work, but here --” she looked around, giving a mock-shudder that reminded Alex incredibly strongly of Kyle for a moment. “You ever just get sick of it sometimes?”

“Sick of --?”

She ate the icing off of a cupcake. “Following orders? I’ve never figured out how people in the military do it.”

Alex looked around. “There’s got to be a lot of Congressmen and women here who served. Why don’t you ask them?”

“Them.” She said, narrowing her eyes. “I know what they’d say. I can ask them anytime I want to. I want to know from _you_. Why do you do it? Follow the orders you’re given?”

Alex took a large enough bite of chips to give him a second to think. “Off the record?”

“I haven’t been a reporter since the first Obama campaign. I’ll probably never be one again. So sure, Captain Manes, off the record.”

He spoke slowly, trying his best to thread the needle between honesty and caution: “I have the legal right and responsibility to refuse illegal orders. And one of my friends, his Dad has a code that he cribbed from the West Point motto: Duty, Honor, Country. In that order. Always in that order, for me, at least. So, there’s no point where I’m not responsible for what I do.” He took a deep breath. “And at the end of the day, the buck stops with your boss, with a lot of the people in this room. I implement foriegn policy, as much as a consular officer at some dusty passport checkpoint does. It’s not on me to develop it.”

“Ah!” she said, leaning in quickly, bouncing on her heels: “But I saw you make a choice, in that horrible fishbowl thing they have you port into. You made sure you got into the room where it happens,” her eyes were sparking wild and he found his mind racing to catch up, “You want to influence the kinds of missions you go on.”

Alex kept his voice flat even as he felt his heartbeat accelerating: “That would be outside of my role.”

She shook her head, red hair flying: “No, no, the first way people take your power is by making you believe you have none. _You,_ Captain Manes, have as much a right to have a say in our foreign policy as any US citizen. You can’t influence in the usual ways because of the Hatch Act and the UCMJ, but here, in this room --” she smiled and it was pure mischief: “Well, you’re just ‘giving your honest opinion,’ right? No one could get you in trouble for _that._ ”

He looked at her for a hard moment and then tilted his head with a smile: “How on earth are you working at the State Department? Aren’t you just setting those musty drapes at Foggy Bottom on fire all the time just to see something moving?”

She raised her shoulders and shrugged, finally relaxing her sparring stance. “I’m a political appointee and lifelong Democrat serving my country under the worst President in history. The sharp likelihood I’ll be booted publicly and watch my career flash down in flames around me adds enough spice most days. Radicalizing passing Airmen is just a hobby.” She gave him a fierce grin. “So, want to know a secret about politicians?”

“Sure,” he said, laughing, eating a big bite of chips.

“Politicians aren’t psychic. They only have 7 sources of information about what the people who elected them actually want.” She held up her fingers: “One, what they already knew before they got into office; two, what their personal friends tell them; three, what they read on social media; four, what they read in traditional media; five, what lobbyists tell them; six, what polls tell them though a small poll is about 15k so anyone below a state Senator isn’t going to run a poll for almost anything; seven, and most importantly, what their constituents tell them.” She clapped her hands, drawing the attention of the old suited men around them and not seeming to notice or care. “That’s it! That’s all. So the only way Congressman Wiltson -- or Senator Mendes over there who your commanding officer has been needling all night about funding -- is going to have _any idea at all_ what the right course of action is, at least as far as popular will goes, is if _people actually tell them_. Just like you were doing with the Congressman.”

“You overheard that?”

She grinned: “Just because I’m a loud ginger everyone assumes I can’t eavesdrop. I can eavesdrop just fine, I just usually prefer to bust down the front door.”

He felt a real smile rise to the surface and didn’t try and stop it: “You might have more in common with military people than you think.”

Her grin took a sharper edge: “So, you’ve got all these policymakers in one room. Dying for some cool story they can allude to and then refuse to share because it’s _classified_. After your whirl-wind political influence tutorial, what do you want from them?”

He worked his jaw, thinking. He looked over the grey headed men, the women in their flats and pants or pumps and nylons, depending on party affiliation. “There’s -- the leadership at the Time Agency is appointed by the Congressional oversight committees. For a long time, decades, it’s been my family. My grandfather, my great-uncle, my father, now my brother. I don’t know of any other US agency that has been so controlled by one family. Honestly, it has fucked up this Agency, its mission, in so many ways. Same with the Habemus Tempus board. But most of the people here aren’t on the oversight committee, so I kind of see this as practice talking to elected officials. Then, when I know what I’m doing, if I get a chance to talk to someone with actual oversight ability, then I won’t trip over myself trying to make my case.”

Something settled in her face as she looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in the conversation. Her voice was quieter, more measured, when she said: “Trying to undo the toxic legacy and intergenerational lies of your family is a damn good reason to get into politics.” She took a breath and reached into her messenger bag, pulling out her card. “Use your personal email and give me an idea of what you think needs to change. I’m not on any of the committees obviously but I know the personalities. I can probably help you avoid obvious pit-traps.”

“That’s really kind.”

She looked around, sober and serious, and he remembered a quote near the end of her first book. She’d been describing genocides committed during her lifetime that the US had not intervened in: “ _Simply put, American leaders did not act because they did not want to.”_

The Undersecretary took a breath and said: “The power at the Time Agency it’s -- immense. Unaccountable.” She gave him a hard smile. “That doesn’t often turn out well. Fixing this might be one of the most important unknown wins of this administration.”

He lifted half a smile: “I don’t know, your work in the DRC is going to save more lives than any other project that no one but you is paying attention to.”

“Well, me, and 84 million Congolese people, and my staff.” She was smiling with pride and Alex felt an echo of it, and a kind of intellectual pleasure he rarely had in this building, the chance to run as fast as he could to keep-up with someone as smart as him.

She glanced down at her plate: “I’m going to get a refill, you want anything?”

“No, I --”

His phone buzzed. He looked at her apologetically but she waved goodbye and went to go arm-wrestle a Senator for the last churro.

> **Rosa** : You around this afternoon? I need heavy manual labor help.
> 
> **Alex** : You do remember I only have one (1) leg
> 
> **Rosa** : w/e don’t play that card with me, I know you hike mountains and shit. Come on, I don’t want to do this by mysseeelllfff
> 
> **Alex** : that’s rude. It’s not a card.
> 
> **Rosa** : Sorry, my bad.
> 
> **Alex** : Ok, apology accepted. 
> 
> **Alex** : What is the task?
> 
> **Rosa** : I’m house-sitting from my friend while he’s out of town and I want to clear the weeds from his garden. They’re … massive. 
> 
> **Alex** : Why is weeding a garden heavy manual labor?

\--

“Those aren’t weeds, Rosa. Those are kraken.” Alex looked up into the acre of fully-grown chest-high tumbleweeds, roving like chaparral across the desert landscape around the modest single-story home surrounded by a thick, traditional adobe wall.

“Why did you think I asked for your big muscly Airman help?” She was wearing blue denim overalls and workboots, a blue Michigan University baseball cap keeping the afternoon sun off her grinning face; Alex was sure she’d stolen it from Kyle. Alex was still in the sweats and t-shirt he’d pulled out of his go-box, though he’d put on his back-up prosthetic at the Time Agency before leaving. He knew he couldn’t bother Patrice about Michael’s shirt until the next day at the earliest, so he’d just headed out as soon as he’d said goodbye to the Undersecretary.

Alex looked around the property. The house had a long, curving driveway and a good hedge of palo verde and sage screening it from the highway. He’d parked beside a mid-century blue American pick-up truck, well-loved and well-maintained. Rosa’s compact Honda was currently parking it in, so he assumed it was the home’s owner’s. Tucked up against the house an old Airstream, also lovingly maintained. _I guess they took a cab or a second car to get out of town_ , Alex thought.

“You sure your friend wants you to clear the tumbleweeds?” He asked, already sweating.

“Yep, he’ll want to plant when he gets back. He’s got big plans for this garden.”

Alex frowned a little. There wasn’t much of a garden in the front of the house; it was mostly gravel, rocks, and tumbleweed. He could see two arching green trees, not native to this area but clearly thriving in the climate, in the sideyard; _probably a garden in the back that curves around to the side_.

He took a breath: “Ok, what do you want me to do?”

She grinned and hopped a little, moving over to the sky-blue pick-up’s empty bed: “Tumbleweeds have shallow roots, so we’ll just pull them all up and piled them in here. Then we’ll cover the whole mess with a tarp, strap it down, and drive it over to the dump.”

“This isn’t a one-afternoon project,” Alex said.

“What, you have something better to do? When’s your next mysterious-disappearance-you-won’t-tell-me-about scheduled?” She strode over to the first tumbleweed she saw, yanking it up by the roots and carrying it over to the truck bed, tossing it in with an arching shot. 

He followed her example, saying: “I’m heading out in two days. I’ll be back 24 hours later.”

“Mmm hmm,” she said. “And this job still makes you feel like shit, right?”

"Actually, part of today was kind of fun. I got to meet someone who’s really smart about foreign policy, totally gives no shit about what other people think, and is really well-respected in her field.” It was getting hot; he could feel the sweat dripping down behind his ears, down his spine. 

“Maybe you should ask her for a job.” Rosa said, leaning her weight back to get the roots out of the rocky soil.

“I have a job.”

“A shitty one.”

Alex wanted to argue, but he didn’t think he had the words. But he was thinking about what the Undersecretary had said about legacy and lies, and he just didn’t feel like lying right now. If the Undersecretary could stare down a roomful of Senators and Congressmembers and not flinch, he could tell Rosa Ortecho about his job. Not about anything big, not about anything that would get his security clearance pulled or Rosa into trouble. But something small.

“So, you know I lost my leg in combat.”

She paused, looking through a thick tumbleweed at him. “I really am sorry about saying your leg was a card.”

“Thanks -- but that’s not where I was going with this.” He hefted the massive armful of weed into the truckbed, muscles warming up at the motion. “I -- I’ve been bombed. Before. I’ve had people shoot at me; hell, I’ve been shot.” He hiked up his pant leg to show the shiny healed scar where Michael had saved him from bleeding out.

“Shit, that sucks.” Rosa turned to get another load.

He followed, still speaking: “And, like, it’s my job.” He took a hard breath. “But also, every single time it happens, I wonder if I’m going to get my leg blown off again, if I’m going to go blind, if I’m going to lose the ability to have kids, if I’m going to just, _lose_. And for a long time, I,” he paused, ripping a tumbleweed free from the earth with a little bit too much force, tearing a branch of sage it had entangled itself with and covering himself in a bright spray of its smell, “I thought it would be ok. Would be fine. I assumed I would die in battle. That was _the plan_.” The one his father had talked about, told him to hope for. His highest service, his actual use. “And I’m not ready to stop, to say I’m worth more than any mission I could win, but I just,” he took a breath, pausing with his arms braced against the side of the truck, letting it take his weight. “When I try to ground in those moments, I’m just,” he tossed the brush into the back, his voice harsh. “It doesn’t feel good. Anymore. I don’t know if it ever did.”

He turned around, expecting to see pity or disgust or horror -- but she was grinning.

“Good fucking job.”

“What?”

“Good _fucking_ job. Taking a minute, getting out of your head, looking back in, and realizing it’s full of trash? Getting disgusted with how things are? That’s a lot of people’s first steps to changing. You can’t unfuck what you don’t know to be fucked.”

He snorted, yanking a knee-high tumbleweed up so a loose spray of sand and gravel crackled against his sweatpants: “I don’t know if I’m disgusted, Rosa. I’m just -- I don’t know if it’s all I can do. For the world. For me.”

“No shit it’s not,” she said, voice even. “I don’t know if you’re like a meter maid or an expert hacker or some kind of hardcore pilot, but your job makes you miserable and you’re happier when you’re not doing it. I see that, as your friend. That’s all I know. And I’m on Team Alex. Whoever’s on Team Your Job isn’t your friend and they fucking suck.”

Alex bit his lips to keep from smiling. “My brother’s my boss.”

She wrinkled her nose: “Ew, I would hate to have Liz boss me around.” She leaned her hips against the bed of the truck; it was mostly full and they’d only cleared about a dozen square feet.

He joined her, shifting his weight off his residual limb for a moment: “No, it’s -- it’s worse than that. He --” and Alex stumbled on the words, not knowing how to say it, “he was responsible, for a long time. For the day-to-day. For keeping me -- under control. Controlled.” His voice was tight, quiet, hard. “I think I kind of hate him for it.”

“As you should. You don’t deserve to be controlled. You deserve to be free.” She wiped her forearm across her forehead. “Want to get some water? It’s hot and we should cool off.”

“Your friend won’t mind?”

“I’m not letting you sleep in his bed, Alejandro. We’re just going to go into the kitchen to get a glass of water.”

He followed her around the tall, thick adobe wall, and sure enough, once they stepped through the back gate, there was a lovely small garden there with a wooden table and two chairs under the shading palo verde trees. It was unpainted, clearly second-hand but in good repair.

“Take a load off, I’ll bring the water out.” She unlocked the sturdy red back door and slipped inside, shutting it carefully behind her. 

Alex looked around the garden. The palo verde with their electric green bark shaded barrel cacti and an artfully arranged arroyito. There were large stones around the table, angled above the earth, creating little microclimates under them for little collections of smaller cacti; along the adobe wall was a healthy stand of prickly pear cactus with its purple-red fruit just finishing their flower. 

She came back out, two big water glasses in her hands.

Alex accepted his with thanks and pointed to the prickly pear. “Those look like they’re about 3 years old?” He asked, “Is that when your friend bought the house?”

“Sounds about right,” she said lightly.

“What does your friend do?” Alex asked, and Rosa took a sip of her water.

“He’s a genius. He writes sometimes, has a bunch of investments, lots of stuff. He’s got like 3 advanced degrees.” She paused, voice getting quiet, something behind it Alex didn’t recognize. “You’d like him a lot.”

Alex quirked a smile. “Well, I feel like he’s going to owe me at least dinner for clearing his land for him.”

She gave him a long look, then nodded. “Yeah, he probably will.”

She settled back in her chair: “So, I know you’re going to talk to a counselor, but for what it’s worth, you can talk to me too. About the stuff you’ve seen, about the stuff you’ve done. I’m not big on judging, except about you needing to quit your shitty job. You tell me you’re scared of your brother or you wish your father would die already or you would actually get paid what you’re worth, I’ll just nod and do the therapy active listening thing.” She took a breath. “It can help, sometimes, not being the only one who knows the craziness that goes on inside your head.”

“Is that what this adventure’s about, having a space to talk?”

“Fuck no, I needed help getting the house ready for when he gets back home, gets to restart his life again. But sometimes, some people, physical people, we think better, talk better, when we’re moving. When we’re sweating. It’s less intense, less,” she squinted, “less public feeling, less watched-feeling, when you’re _doing_ something while excavating the crap sandwich that is a shitty childhood. So I thought, hey, I need manual labor help; you need feeling-talking help.” She grinned, bright and sparkling. “Win-win.”

He laughed a little. “I appreciate it, you, Kyle, all of you. He said you might turn me into a project --” she began to object and he held up his hand, “But he was right. I needed a project manager, a friend with a bit of organization.”

“I kind of think of it like being able to see around corners. Like, I’ve been this way before. I know where shit is going to get real and where things will be fine. Like, you mentioned getting bombed. I don’t know about how that feels. But I would bet you don’t want people being all weepy at you about it. Maybe knocking it off with the unannounced fireworks, but not, like --”

“Pity.” He said. 

She nodded. “That shit is the worst. So there’s things I know about, things I don’t, and I have a pretty good idea of what they are.” She paused, a smirk coming across her face. “So, your boy. The one you were worried about kissing --”

“I don’t kiss and tell --” Alex started, furiously downing his water to try and cool his blush.

“Don’t give me the details chico, just, like -- are you happy? With how it went?”

Alex hid his entire face behind his glass, pressing it to his cheeks that wouldn’t stop burning. “Yeah,” he said in a soft, pleased voice.

“Then good. I’m glad. That’s all I need to know. And your boy is lucky, to have someone like you. Someone who’s working on himself, who’s shoveling out the inside stables a bit. Makes more room for other things; good things.”

Alex’s breath hitched. “I hope so.”

“I know so.”

They spent the rest of the daylight yanking up tumbleweeds; it turned out they were mostly made of air, so every half-an-hour Rosa would throw a tarp over the whole mess, hoist herself up into the bed of the truck, jump until the suspension creaked, stomp it down with her boots some more, and then get back down again. Alex declined to join her, both because he wasn't sure how the leg would do jumping up and down on tumbleweeds, and because it obviously made her so happy. The brilliant reds and perfect oranges and yellows of the New Mexico sunset chased away. Alex begged off the offer to come along to the joint Valenti-Ortecho family dinner, heart beating with anticipation of his own plans. On the way to Kyle’s place, he went by the pharmacy. He considered trying to fill a basket with things he didn’t need to disguise the fact he was there to buy condoms and lube, but then he thought of Rosa’s smirk and the Undersecretary’s fierce smile, and decided _fuck it._

He picked out one of each based on packaging and strode to the front of the store, plopping them squarely down on the counter and staring at the bored clerk, daring him to say something. The teenager gave him a little side-eye, but then just shrugged, scanned them, waited for Alex to pay, and handed them over. Alex slipped them into his bike’s saddlebags and headed home through the sweet-scented twilight air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clara Power is my version of the author of this book and probably my biggest girl!crush in US foreign policy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Problem_from_Hell. Joe Wiltson is based off of the real Congressman who holds that position currently.


	27. Oh yeah, alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're earning some more of our rating here, lovelies.

Kyle had told Alex a few days before he was going to be out of the house for the evening, which had given Alex a lot of time to prepare and think about how he wanted to use the time.

The thing was, as he’d told Kyle and Rosa and Michael, he’d had sex. He knew the mechanics.

But he hadn’t had sex with anyone he liked. He hadn’t, in a very real way, _liked_ sex. It could feel good and have a physical release, but when he had been of an age that most teenaged boys spent emptying tissue paper boxes and figuring out what they liked, he’d been the only kid in the barracks or sharing two-bed hotel rooms with his father.

Tonight, he had the time, he had the tools, and he had the motivation to get to know what he actually liked. But he was trying to force himself to not think of it as a mission, trying to remove the idea of missions from his head for the night.

So once he got to the apartment, he set the scene. He put the lube and condoms in his bedside drawer; the condoms were wishful thinking, for when their timelines caught up. He reheated some of the leftover maqluba and ate it while listening to the “Spring Awakening” soundtrack that Rosa had recommended. He took a shower, using the showerchair that had appeared unnamed and welcomed after his first night in the apartment, sleeping clothes carefully selected and laid out on the bathroom counter. He let himself check all the locks on all the windows, something he was usually careful to do only when Kyle couldn’t see. He decided he didn’t want the white noise of the dishwasher and hand-cleaned, dried, and put away his dishes. He thought about having a beer, but he didn’t want to associate sex with alcohol; also, if he was going to try and relax with a little chemical help, it wasn’t going to be by drinking Kyle’s hipster Seattle IPAs.

He caught himself standing in the middle of the living room, considering checking the locks again and sternly escorted himself to his room; then he locked the door. He checked his gun, his replacement knife under the mattress. He checked the lightbulbs for bugs; nothing.

Alex sat on the bed, started to take off his leg, then got up to turn off the light. 

In the darkness of the room, he sat back down and sunk his hands into his hair, trying to breathe. _That nervous about it, love?_ He heard Michael in his mind. He’d never called him ‘love,’ but it seemed like something he’d do. Alex closed his eyes, trying to focus on that feeling, the feeling of Michael’s arms around him last night. _Tight_. _Warm and safe_. 

He took a deep breath, feeling his ribs expand under where Michael had pressed his hand, where he’d felt his touch even when they were far apart. The Michael in 2018 had felt -- mature. Complicated. _Loving_.

He would be older, strong shoulders, hands strong from good work. Lines around his eyes from smiling. Hair wild, in a perfect halo.

Alex slipped his sheets back and undid his prosthetic, laying it beside the bed. He closed his eyes, resting his hands on his stomach.

Michael.

 _Michael_.

He’d live in a little house, someplace with no stairs. Someplace warm; Alex imagined him in Roswell, maybe like the house they’d been at today. Except Michael would never let his property get covered in tumbleweeds; he was too careful with his things. The inside of the house would be full of books and Mescalero Apache pottery and weavings from Jared and Marie, his PhD framed and his starcharts ragged with love, hung and framed.

Alex imagined working in their cosy living room, typing on his laptop. A job where he could think, where he could help without getting drowned or shot or lying to people too much. He’d be -- happy.

Michael would come home in the evening, pulling his boots off and putting them by the door.

Alex took a breath, just the thought of Michael coming home to him making his veins pulse. He remembered holding onto him as they swooped around the roundabout in Doha, the strong feeling of his thighs around his hips in the loft in Pittsburgh.

Alex would be sitting with his bare foot up on the couch; they would have bought the sofa together, a massive thing long and wide enough for them to both take a nap on if they wanted to. He’d be in something soft and not Air Force branded. 

Alex slipped his hand under his shirt, tracing the lines of his abs, following the path Michael’s fingers had taken. He took a hard breath as he swept his fingertips, _light-light-light_ across his nipple. Definitely some good response there, and no thoughts of other missions so far; _good job_.

His toes curled at the imagined praise, hiding a smile. The next sweep of his thumb the breath came out harder, the ghost of a sigh.

Michael would drop his backpack on the hand carved table under the window, all grinning happiness and loving arms. He would stalk over, eyes bright and Alex’s name on his lips. _Alex Truman. Mr Truman_.

No more Manes, no more Captain. Just Alex. _Just his._

He tilted his head back on his pillow, arching his chest up, feeling his core muscles move, aware of them in a way he wasn’t usually. They felt more _his_ , more _useful_ , than when they were just tools, when they were something for someone else to use, to make use of.

He cleared his throat, feeling the sound of it move under his chest, his stomach moving with it. He trailed his fingers down to his stomach, moving through the hair there. He imagined Michael would kneel down beside the couch, rutching up his shirt and pressing kiss after kiss across his chest, hands greedy for touch, mouth greedy for taste. Alex would arch up into him too, wanting and ready to wait, wanting to see what Michael wanted from the evening, just enjoying being touched by a loving hand.

Alex’s body was warmer and he shoved the blankets down, giving himself room to move. He moved his hand up to his throat, imagining Michael kissing there, his hair tickling the underside of Alex’s jaw.

 _How was your day?_ He’d ask and Michael would mumble about his discoveries, his projects, kisses broken up with _astrodynamics_ and _circuit diagram_ and _stupid undergraduates_.

Alex felt a grin rising; in this other-life, he would have a degree too, would have spent years getting it, getting to know his own mind as something more than a weapon, spending his days thinking and every night, _every night_ , with Michael.

They’d know each other’s bodies, know each other’s sounds. And that was a thought, a long-forbidden thought. The rare times he’d allowed himself release, the rare times he’d been safe enough to relax into it, he’d trained himself to be perfectly silent. Having a private shower stall was one thing; having quiet he could fill as he wanted was entirely another.

He tried a small sound and it echoed oddly against his ears in his room. _No need to force it, love; just do what feels good_.

He thought back to the Michael in his mind: _you. You feel good_.

Michael would chuckle against his skin, he’d get to feel that golden sound against his skin again. Alex would pull him up for a kiss, Michael climbing on top of him, settling down against him, weight sure and welcome. Alex touched his cock, skin hot, soft slide over hard flesh, heart beating a racket, breath high and shallow in his chest. Here is where he would usually grip hard enough it was almost painful, jack himself off as quickly as he could, get the mess contained, and try to go to sleep.

The things that floated into his head as he got close to coming weren’t often welcome, weren’t often nice. He liked to move through them as quickly as he could.

But his imagined Michael was as close as breathing, body warm and solid and there. None of those other thoughts, those other voices, could get through the shield that was Michael’s light in his mind right now. _If this is what grounding can be like, I’ll try to be grounded all the time_ , he thought as he slid his palm over the head of his cock, fucking up into it, feeling the pressure build, race along his nerves. He writhed against it for a moment and realized, on that couch in his imagination, Michael could keep kissing him as he moved under him, hands braced on either side of Alex’s head as he slid his entire body down Alex’s, every point of touch a point of hot, welcome friction.

Alex would cock his leg around Michael’s ass, pulling his hips in tight, nudging him over until he was riding his thigh. Michael would get hot and flustered, eyes bright and wild as his hands moved down to grip Alex’s hips, moving him where he wanted him -- and that, that thought moved something in Alex’s chest, a sound coming out, a soft, high, gut-punched thing.

 _There we go_ , came the voice in his mind, dripping with satisfaction and heat. _Tell me more about that_.

Alex tried to think what had gotten him going about that -- it was, not the kind of thing he’d like to admit. But it was -- nice. The thought of being moved by someone who he trusted, trusted enough with his body to let them move him. That his _body_ trusted, because who his mind and heart and body trusted were such entirely different matters he couldn’t even get them in the same room. The idea that his _body_ might come to trust Michael, that was -- good. And Michael would know the weight of that trust, the cost of it, and never abuse it, never use it against him, just keep it safe and careful as he kept all his things. Alex circled his fingers lightly around his cock, fingers a little too dry for it to be comfortable.

He imagined his hands would be frantic between them, getting Michael’s black jeans unzipped, Michael and him shoving them down low enough on his thighs the zipper was no longer a threat.

Michael would pull his shorts down, and then there would be -- hot, skin, too dry in the New Mexico heat -- Alex flailed his hand out to the side, grabbing the lube. He popped the top, pooling it in his palm and slicking himself up. He took a long, slow breath at that feeling. _Much better than dry,_ came the smirking voice.

“I figured,” Alex whispered.

 _My genius husband_ , Alex imagined him grinning, teeth getting in the way of his kisses and still the best thing about them. _My favorite person_.

_Love._

Alex paused, hand stilling. He hadn’t -- he hadn’t said that word, not to anyone, not as an adult. A lot of “love you”s to his Mom, in the rare times he’d gotten to spend time with her. He thought about it, mind tight with worry; _what if that wasn’t the right word for this feeling is, this protective, encompassing, warm, safe, comforting, live-wire feeling?_

Michael’s voice was kind, a little teasing: _Who’re you trying to convince, the Love Auditors? Alex, love, come on. Come on back._

Michael would kiss him, mouth hot and open, unafraid and _his_. Alex would let him in, let him taste every part of him, touch him, knowing he was safe in his hands, hands that had only ever healed, held, helped. He would move against him, bodies in the kind of sync only really good teams got to, after years of practice. Bodies that trusted each other, moving fast and faster as the tension built between them.

A thrust here, a huffed breath, a twist of the wrist bringing them together, every sensation held and shared.

Alex would be breathing, opened mouthed and wanting, head tucked into Michael’s shoulder, Michael’s hot pants against his neck.

 _I’m so glad to have you_ , he’d say, and Alex would agree, too far gone to speak, body racing towards the climax they both knew so well together.

_Don’t hold back for me, I want to feel you come, I want to feel you let go for me, against me, oh, Alex --_

And Alex was coming, across his hand, in his sheets, the smell thick and musky in air, and he kept touching himself, kept his fingers moving, breathing ragged, each exhale ending with a high, soft sound, imagining Michael rutting against him, grinding down, chasing his pleasure, Alex’s hand on him, his body bringing him there, feeling him spend against his skin, slick and gross and mixed and _theirs_ and he’d cool down, body twitching, gasping, soft and safe and warm and _his_.

Alex let himself go, wiping his hand off on his sheet. He could hear the voices in his head trying to rise, worrying about the smell, the sounds, doing the laundry.

But as he turned over onto his stomach to sleep, he just imagined Michael was beside him, arm heavy over his back, holding him in place, in _his_ place, safe and together and free.

**\--**

Alex opened his eyes at the Al Udeid US Air Force base in Qatar. He had a massive bag of SCUBA gear slung over his shoulder, the itch of desert sand already starting in his boots, and he just wanted this mission to be over.

He took a breath of the semi-cooled back office air from the abandoned unit he’d arrived in, air conditioner whining and hissing over his head. Somewhere, on the other side of the wall, his 17-year-old self was sitting silently in a meeting of senior officers, trying to appear attentive while counting the days until he received the implant, jointed the Time Agency, finally got 24 full hours at a time away from his father. Alex watched as the light of the timestream faded beneath his uniform shirt, wondering if he’d get to see Michae’s, get to see him take his shirt off when he saw him next. Then he adjusted his bag over his shoulder and limped to the commander’s office where he would get his transport.

Like the most recent Somalia mission, the Time Agency had done extensive prep work for Alex for this mission. He’d have a driver, a team, and munitions all his own. He’d only brought the SCUBA gear because the likelihood they would have equipment that would fit his leg the way he needed it to was limited; he had a particular swimming prosthesis that worked for him and it hadn’t been invented until 2012. 

He wound through the offices and tents, nodding to Airmen who side-eyed his black bag but let him pass when they saw his Captain’s bars. He found the office from his briefing, two massive lanes of well-used desks, full of Airmen pushing paper and tapping on keyboards. His contact was in the back: she was about his age, dirty blond hair pulled back into a tight regulation bun at the back of her head. The office hummed and buzzed around them, fluorescents flickering.

She stood up from her office chair and saluted. He returned it, holding back a grimace at the weight of the bag as it dragged on his shoulder.

“I believe you’ve been briefed on the mission?”

She nodded, voice quiet in the crowded office: “I’m supposed to drive you to the beach.”

\--

They made the hour-long drive through the dunes to the southeastern corner of the peninsula in silence. Alex had tried to break it:

“Have you ever seen maps of Qatar from right after it broke away from the trucial states, back in 1973?”

“No, sir.”

“It used to have a land border with KSA, with Saudi Arabia. But one day, the Saudi government lined up 10 miles worth of their American-made tanks along the border and drove north, until the landbridge was cut off. Then they sent a message to the Al-Thani family, the Qatari ruling family, and told them there was a new border.”

“Interesting, sir.”

“It was because KSA didn’t want two countries on what they see as _their_ peninsula to get to have regular economic or social contact without crossing through their checkpoints. They wanted to keep Qatar and UAE isolated.”

“Interesting, sir.”

He tried again: “If you look at the aerial photos of Doha from that year, from 1973, do you know what the corniche, the beach front looks like?”

“No, sir.”

He took a breath: “It’s entirely empty sand, except for that weirdly pyramid-shaped Sheraton and the Portuguese fort from the 1600s. Absolutely nothing else was built here. And now there’s hundreds of skyscrapers!”

“Interesting, sir.”

Alex gave up. The mid-morning light showing dunes far outnumbering the buildings, occasional glimpses of the Gulf the only reprieve from the beige and white of sand.

Alex pulled out his copy of the briefing, trying to figure out what was pissing him off so much about this missions. He’d have another six hours to think about it on the boat ride to the Strait of Hormuz, but he didn’t want to try reading his paper briefing amidst the warm waves of the Gulf.

It was January 2008 and the Strait of Hormuz was the 21 mile belt of navigable water between Iran and the UAE where billions of dollars of oil moved in rusty deathtraps every year, not to mention most of Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain’s drinkable water, construction materials, and food. In response to perceived or real threats to its sovereignty, Iran’s government had threatened to float mines across it, patrol it, close it, a dozen times in Alex’s lifetime. His mission was a footnote in that conflict, a small puncture that would deflate some of that posturing, ensure safe passage for the people and goods that filled the Gulf daily.

In Alex’s timeline, from December 2007 to January 2008, Iranian navy speedboats had been doing tricks in front of American naval warships. Zooming in and then away again, wiggling their whitewater, buzzing their wakes. “Harassment” is what the press and his briefing had been calling it. It seemed like harmless ego flexing to Alex, young sailors from a proud country tired of being glowered down at by foreign militaries within eyesight of tourists lounging on the Hormuz Island beach. But the mission was to put a stop to it.

The mission was simple enough: he would take a speedboat to meet a Navy SEAL team currently sunning themselves on an oil tanker waiting its turn to use the 2-mile wide shipping lane through the Strait. Together, they would prep for a night dive. The tanker would begin the crossing, and they would slip off and into the dark, warm water, as close as they could get to the docks where the Time Agency had confirmed the Iranian navy were keeping the fleet of speedboats they’d been using to “harass” the United States Navy. They would plant small bombs on the bottoms of the boats and get back to the tanker. Then they would wait for them to come out the next morning at dawn, when the Time Agency knew they planned to sally forth. Then his team would trigger the bombs from the deck of the Liberian tanker; they were small enough to sink the boats slowly, with more than enough time for everyone on them to get clear and get rescued, on camera, by the US Navy. The Navy would be in the area conducting freedom of navigation patrols through the Strait and already had ships at the ready for this mission. The Iranian navy would have no clear evidence of who or what had sunk their boats, and the harassment would stop.

He’d confirmed with Flint -- twice -- that the explosions would only be enough to damage the boats, not leave anyone else in need of prosthesis. His brother had reconfirmed both times.

Alex wondered what Clara Power would think, if she’d argue there was a diplomatic solution. _Diplomatic solutions require having formal diplomatic relations, which the US and Iran haven’t had since 1980._ _Military solutions are the only thing that’s left._

It seemed so _stupid_.

Alex kept those thoughts to himself on the long drive. He kept them to himself when his driver dropped him at the beach and left. He kept them to himself when the Navy fast boat arrived and he met the men he would be diving with. He kept them to himself on the six hour boat ride in the hot Gulf sun. He reviewed the plan with the SEALs, confirming the plan. They’d nodded, faces stony. He wondered if they’d be more lively if they hadn't just spent a week sitting on the deck of an oil tanker in the still-vicious winter heat of the Gulf, waiting for a random Airman to make time for them.

As the oil tanker grew on the horizon, Alex was reminded how _massive_ these things were. Skyscrapers placed on their sides, gargantuan, rust-red and ugly as sin, there was nothing sleek or interesting about it. The tanker was flying a Liberian flag, since it was the cheapest and least-regulated country the captain had been able to get registration in. Alex’s briefing told him it had filled up in Kuwait and after this mission it would be circling the Arabian Peninsula, up through the Suez Canal, across the Mediterrenian, through the Strait of Gibraltar, across the Atlantic, dropping off in Louisiana before circling back again. It would carry a million barrels of light crude and a crew of two dozen who would spend long, exhausting days at sea, going months and sometimes years before seeing their families again.

The tanker was a ship built for girth, for holding oil, for surviving the high, fast waters of the Indian Ocean, the Mediterrenian Sea, and the Atlantic and slipping into ports that never saw human passengers. Alex wondered if more people would feel differently about the oil trade if the industrial and pleasure ports hadn’t been so intentionally separated in so much of the developed world, if they had to shake in the wake of these monsters everytime they took a ferry ride to work or got on a cruiseliner to the Carribean.

He also kept those thoughts to himself.

Things started to go sideways as soon as he got on to the deck.

The SEAL team commander was waiting for him, a beefy man with deep frown lines etched into his tanned skin. Alex saluted.

“You’re late. We’ve been waiting for a week.”

Alex frowned, but there wasn’t another good response he could give to a commanding officer. “I apologize, sir.”

“Do you have the shift schedule we were promised, or did your team fuck that up too?”

Alex reached into his bag, pulling out the sheaf of papers -- only to have the commander snatch it out of his fingers.

He took a breath, settling himself more firmly into parade rest.

“You’re certified to dive?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve completed 35 underwater missions, nearly all solo dives.”

“Doing what, looking for planes the chair force lost?”

Alex looked at him steadily. Inter-branch teasing was the norm and if the man wasn’t radiating hostility, he’d try bantering back about crayon eating SEAL men. But there were some military men who took branch rivalry to extremes, decided hating one group of servicemembers or another was a core part of their personalities. It looked like this commander would be one of them.

The man huffed, thinking he’d won some kind of fight Alex wasn’t planning on fighting with him, and shoved the papers back against his chest.

“We leave at full dark. Find your own place to rest up, all the bunks are taken.”

“Yes, sir.” Alex said. The pulley system deposited his SCUBA gear on the deck and he hefted it over his shoulder.

One of the crew, a Filipino man, if Alex had to guess, wandered over to him. “Are you hungry?”

Alex thought about it; he was, a little. Then he thought about the possibility of spending the next 5 hours until full dark in silence. He caught the man’s kind eye and nodded: “I am, thank you for asking.”

The sailor took Alex down to the low-ceilinged, windowless galley. Someone had brought a bright blue tablecloth from home, and some well-worn wooden chairs surrounded a matching pinewood table bolted to the deck in the corner. The cook reheated some thick, spicy stew and Alex dug in, chatting about the places the tanker had been, and where it was going.

None of the Navy SEALs came into the galley in the hours Alex spent there, playing cards and talking shit in a half-dozen languages. None of the crew said so, but he got the distinct impression the commander’s attitude problem had spread to his entire team and the crew would be relieved when they could stop feigning needing to make ‘repairs’ and finally take their slot in the Hormuz crossing schedule and get back on their journeys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to the entire community of the Roswell 18+ Discord server for their help 1) figuring out what Alex would do on his Special Night Alone and 2) an in-depth discussion of how buying lube works in different parts of the world!


	28. a life taker dear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a description of violence here that's not more graphic than what we've had so far, but giving folks a heads-up its coming. Also, a big beefy man yells at Alex and he checks out for a bit.

Alex was in the middle of -- badly -- losing another hand of penny poker when one of the SEALs who’d picked him up on the Qatari beach shouted from the doorway: “Captain, it’s been full dark for 10 minutes.”

Alex folded his hand, slipped his meager winnings into his pocket -- a mix of ‘pennies’ from the Philippines, India, and Europe -- and followed the SEAL to the surface, hauling his bag the whole way.

None of the 4 other SEALs were in their wetsuits yet, lounging against the red-painted gunwale, and Alex immediately began to strip. The men were muttering and grumbling to themselves, but grew quiet when he got down to his boxer-briefs, when they could all see his prosthetic. He kept his head down, making sure to pull out his waterproof prosthetic from his bag first, then the flipper attachment, before he began to remove his leg.

They watched in silence as he got into his wetsuit, attached the prosthesis and stood.

The commander’s voice was gruff: “Were your 35 undersea missions before or after your injury?”

“After, sir.” He kept his voice clipped and even.

The wind sounded loud in his ears as he pulled on the rest of his dive equipment, leaving the regulator hanging. He packed his clothes into his bag and stowed it with the others. The men were shifting back and forth on their feet as they waited for the cage lift that would lower them down the side of the tanker to their fast boat. He could feel their stares on the side of his neck.

The youngest of them, the blond one who’d been sent to get him from the galley, asked with a small smile: “Are you staying with us after the mission or heading back?”

“I’ll make my own way, don’t worry about me.” Alex said, hearing his voice grow cold. He wondered what Kyle would think of this version of standing up for himself, of refusing to let slights and rudeness slide as easily as he used to. 

They loaded into the lift, the commander carrying the pack of lightweight munitions. As they were lowering down the side of the ship, Alex’s eyes caught and held on something. The wind was whipping around the side of the tanker, trying to steal his words, and he said:

“Sir, that’s C4.”

The commander looked at him like he was the stupidest man alive.

“Yes?”

Alex’s stomach was in knots. “Sir, the briefing said we were going to lightly damage the boats, so they sunk slow enough everyone could get off. That much ordinance will blow the bows clean off.”

The man shrugged. “It’s what we were issued.”

“No, sir, there must be a mistake.”

He stepped into Alex’s space, trying to crowd him back against the caged wall of the lift.

“This mission is to stop the Iranian navy from harassing our vessels. They’re conducting dangerous and unprofessional maneuvers with those cute speedboats they use and little boys who can’t take care of their toys get them broken." His eyes were wide, voice a projecting growl: "Do you have a problem with that?”

“Sir, the mission briefing --”

The man roared back: “The mission is what I _say_ it is. These are the munitions issued to our team _over a week ago_ , while we’ve been roasting our asses here waiting for _you_ to get around to moseying out here. Are you gonna refuse your orders?”

Alex frowned, working his jaw. “Sir, can we blow their engines while they're in port? That will remove them from the field of battle without risking loss of life.”

The commander’s eyes widened, teeth yellow and bared. He looked around at his men, who were all silent, pressed on the far side of the cage. “Can you believe this? Are you _negotiating_ with me, Airman? This is a military mission, not order drinks at your country club dinner. Get ready to go or you can tread water until we get back and get a nice, cozy court martial.”

Alex’s mind was racing. _Did this count as an illegal order?_ It was stupid, dangerous, but so much of what he’d done was. He’d forgotten, briefly, what this was like. Why he’d fallen into the long, low track of never arguing, never talking back. He had no _practice_ doing it.

Still, he had to try: “Sir, I request that you modify the mission to prevent loss of life.”

“Request denied.”

“Sir, I request --”

The lift jerked to a halt, the water of the Gulf slapping the side of the tanker, crests just beneath their divebooted toes. “All requests denied, shut up and get on the boat, Airman or I’ll have your commission for toilet paper.”

Alex’s blood was running hot and his mind spinning. He felt himself nod, watched himself step out of the cage and into the boat. He went through all of his equipment checks on automatic as the fast boat pulled away from the tanker, heading towards the Strait.

He and the other 4 men on the boat were each issued three bombs each. He strapped it to his dive belt, knowing he’d need to adjust his air for the heavier weight than he’d expected.

They got to the location Alex’s intel had told them was a gap in the Iranian night patrols, bit down on thor regulators, pulled on their masks, and slipped into the water.

For the first time since he arrived, the silence around him felt peaceful. The dark water had low visibility from all of the shipping traffic, but just the feel of it around him, the even pressure on his body as he carefully lowered himself to the agreed-upon depth, it was good. He oriented to the flashing light of the commander, who would take the lead on their swim to the island dock a mile away. He began to swim, body weightless and unaching in a way it never was on land.

He could hear the thrum of his blood in his ears as he kicked forward, following that small, blinking light, the lights of the men around him blinking like pilot fish. They were far enough down in the warm Gulf water, any patrol ship wouldn’t be able to see their lights through the murk and the muck.

Alex remembered a dive off the coast of Oman, a trip he’d taken to convince a senior minister there to host a particular peace talk. The man had been older, friendly enough, easily convinced by a pretty smile and a bit of hand holding, but what had really convinced him was how thrilled Alex had been by the reefs off the coast of Oman. The reefs there were teeming with rays and little sharks, brightly colored crabs and sharp-toothed eels. There were whale sharks from September to November, though Alex hadn't seen them yet. Alex had been worried about what he would have to do, to convince the minister, but in the end, the man had simply enjoyed Alex’s company and the chance to show a young American some of the more unseen, beautiful parts of his country.

He wished all of his missions could be like that.

Alex watched as the white sand of the sea floor below him waver into view, keeping the lights of his team in his peripheral vision. The sand dipped down again into invisibility. Most of the Gulf wasn’t more than 35 meters deep, many parts of it no more than 3 meters, but visibility was about 5 - 15 meters, so they swam for a long time in the shallow dark, seeing the sand undulate up from beneath them, driven into ridges and crests by currents or shipping traffic or both.

The water in the Gulf evaporated quickly, leaving it salty and sometimes blood hot, so there were few animals who made their permanent homes there. As the seafloor started to rise more steadily, Alex caught sight of a little school of zebra-striped fish, wiggling and gulping down whatever microscopic life they could find. He watched them, the lights around him keeping him in formation. 

One of the lights flashed in a pattern -- the commander's. They were nearing their quarry.

He could still stop, he told himself. He could drop the bombs to be lost in the muck of the sea floor, swim away into the sand-filled water where they would never catch him, crawl out onto some beach, and just wait out his time clock.

Just; leave.

But when he got back to the Time Agency, a court martial would be waiting for him. Even he avoided that, through good argumentation or freshly-minted political connections or his father’s hated patronage, he would still never travel in time again. And there was a part of him, a real, human part, that wanted to know how the story with Michael went. That didn’t want to leave him, 21 and wanting, only to dive back into his life 7 years later. There had to be a reason Michael in 2018 hadn’t approached him yet, hadn’t found him at 28. He had to trust there was a reason, and follow the story through to the end.

A dozen docked speedboats came into view, all identical, scarred white fiberglass bottom bobbing in the low waves. The team spread out, attaching bomb after bomb. They only went out a few at a time, so they would have to guess and check the next morning as they set off the bombs.

Alex put his on the back corner of the boats, as far from where anyone on deck would be standing as possible and away from the fuel tanks. The commander flashed his light that he was ready to head back and Alex -- he was seized with an urge, a need to _fix_ this. He flashed the signal to wait, and went back to his three boats, making it look like he was checking to make sure the bombs were tightly secured. Instead, he dropped them, letting them tumble to the shallow bottom of the bay, hidden from him and the team by the swirling sand in the shallow water.

12 boats were supposed to be carrying bombs but only 9 would be now. It was the best he could figure out to do. Maybe they would be in luck, maybe tomorrow they would only send those Alex had touched. Or maybe they would have time to see they had been tampered with and fix them. The remote detonators had to be within seeing distance, so any boats at the dock wouldn't blow up just because they triggered them. It was the worst kind of math he could think of, but short of open mutiny, there wasn’t much he could do. It’s not like the commander could tell which boats he’d sabotaged and which he had not.

He flicked his light to indicate he was ready, and they resumed their swim. Alex’s heart was racing thready, body sweating in his suit. He could hear the commander testifying at his court martial: _“Then the Captain returned to his assigned boats, did something we couldn’t see because of low visibility, and returned. On the day of the even, three boats failed to detonate. I believe this failure was intentional on the Captain’s part.”_

He would make the case he’d fucked up; Flint would believe that, and maybe, _maybe_ this mission would just go into whatever version of the Colonel’s portfolio missions Flint was now carrying. He had to hope he was still valuable enough to the Time Agency that they would fight for him to keep working if he was turned in. _At least until Michael and I catch up_.

They got back to the tanker before dawn, pulling themselves into the boat. It was exhausting being above the water again, every part of his body feeling weighted as a doubled-up dive belt. Alex was gasping with the exertion, the other SEALs not doing much better. They rid themselves of their gear, stripping down to wetsuits only, boxing them all carefully away into the lockers along the gunwales of the fastboat. Alex had to keep his on, needing to bring back as much of what he’d brought with him as possible. They stared at him, but he had decided, approximately the moment they had all backed into the corner of the lift cage to watch him get screamed at by their commanding officer, that he didn’t give a fuck what they thought. When they eased beside the tanker ship, he was the first one up, clambering into the cage and stationing himself in the back corner where no one could get behind him.

He locked his jaw and fixed his gaze on the lightening horizon, ignoring the questioning looks and grumbles as the rest of the men joined him in the lift cage. Once they were back on deck, he sat against the gunwale and stripped himself out of his gear, carefully packing it all back in his bag. One of the crew came over with a large, thick, dry towel, still warm from some kind of dryer.

He let himself crack out of his ice-cold carapace for a moment, offering the man a smile. He got his body dry, figuring his hair could air dry, got into his clothes, cleaned and packed his gear, and headed back down to the galley, every step, every movement radiating fury that he had no idea where else to put.

The chef let him have a cup of hot tea in a styrofoam cup and left him alone; about an hour later, Alex forced himself to go back to the deck, hauling his bag up with him. He wanted to be there when the mission finished, to bear witness even if he couldn’t bear the consequences of his actions.

The sun dawned bright and clear across the Strait of Hormuz, the grey and brown sandstone cliffs glimmering white in the shining light. Alex watched as the US Navy destroyer worked its way through one of the shipping channels, grew bulk getting larger and larger as the sun rose.

“Best seat in the house,” said the young blond SEAL who’d tried to talk to him earlier. “It’ll be good to see our mission have an impact for once; usually we just cause trouble and leave and never get to see it work out.” Alex's gear bag heavy where he’d laid it against his legs. Alex said nothing, watching as the US Navy destroyer-class ship came into full view. Right on schedule, he heard the whining buzz of the Iranian fast boats careening across the water. There were three of them, and they zipped and zagged and generally made a nuisance of themselves across the destroyer’s bow. The SEAL handed him a pair of binoculars: he looked and saw all of the boats were armed with deck-mounted machine guns, gunners standing at the ready, fingers pointing and waving at the US Navy ships. 

“His gun’s unpinned, that one over there,” the man said. Alex looked; it was, but the man seemed to have no intention of firing. _Probably_ _criminal_ _negligence,_ Alex thought. He moved his binoculars over to the deck of the Navy ship, where a half-dozen sailors in crisp blue fatigues had their phones out and pointed down, recording the fast boats as they conducted their dominance displays on the water.

“10,” the commander said, just beside Alex. Alex startled; he hadn’t seen the man approach. There was no reason for him to stand next to Alex, his view wasn’t better, his line of sight to the boats no more clear. _He’s just being an asshole_.

“9,” he kept counting, looking down at Alex. Alex glowered back at him before returning his eyes to the ships.

“8,” Alex counted men on the boats -- one gunner, one pilot. Six total. None had the full complement of 3 the brief had told him to expect.

“7.” One of the boats was slowing, pilot on the radio, probably answering the US Navy ship-to-ship radio calls to tell them to knock it off.

“6.” The destroyer sounded something that was as similar to a car’s horn as a chihuahua’s bark was to a lion’s roar. The boats didn’t back off.

“5.” The destroyer sounded again, and Alex wanted to cover his ears, to go below deck; but he forced himself to keep watching.

“4.” The boats began circling again, preparing the zip in front of the destroyer. Their paint was faded and flaking, their wood decking from the ‘70s.

“3.” Alex looked closely at the faces of the men on the boats. Some had beards, some were clean-shaved.

“2.” Some were his age, some his father’s, some Michael’s when he would next see him.

“1.” He kept his eye on the boats.

“Go for 1.”

Nothing happened; no one on the tanker panicked. They had no way of knowing which of the boats corresponded to which of the bombs, so of the 12 total placed, they could just be out of range of one of the ones still in port. _Please_. Alex thought. _Please_.

“Go for 2.”

They didn’t want all 3 boats to fail at once, that would be much, much too obvious. Nothing happened.

“Go for 3.”

One of the boats engines blew, yellow flame engulfing the back-end of the ship only to be quickly replaced by greasy, billowing black smoke; the engine had caught fire. Alex squeezed the gunwale so hard the paint cracked, slivering against his skin. The other boats began to circled back to the burning ship, trying to help, trying to find the pilot. The gunner jumped into the water, trying to swim away to one of the other ships. Alex watched, unable to see if the pilot had jumped free. As soon as one of the boats got close enough to pull the gunner in -- men reaching over the side, holding down lifesavers, holding onto each other’s arms to get out of the churning water -- the commander growled:

“Go for 4.”

The rescue boat blew up.

It would probably look and feel like a collusion, fire jumping from one boat to another.

The destroyer was approaching, fire hoses at the ready.

“Go for all the rest.”

The third boat, which had been circling at a distance, hissed, engine popping, and began to drift. No explosion.

These were old, shitty boats, barely hanging on to their last days. Whether it had been one of Alex’s sabotages or just a regular engine failure, he didn’t know. But it had stalled out, too far away to throw life preservers to the men who’d managed to jump into the water, drifting away from them in the crosscurrent. Alex imagined he could hear the screaming from the water; and maybe he could. Sound carried strangely over the water.

It took long, painful minutes for the destroyer to lower a rescue boat, and Alex watched the men in the water, some swimming with only one arm, the other either missing or too injured to work in the churning sea. He didn’t let himself look away. Didn’t let himself stop listening, not after the commander strode away to celebrate, not after all the other SEALs went below to commandeer the galley, and not even when one of the crew came up to ask if he was alright.

He kept watching until every Iranian man was in the rescue boat; then he watched as body parts were fished out of the water. He looked around the deck; everyone else had gone below, unwilling to witness the aftermath. There was a special cruelty in using body-destroying bombs in places whose cultures saw the burning of bodies as disrespectful to the dead. He felt a sharp pain in his palm and pried his hands off gunwale: red paint had flecked off, sharp and broken, across his palms.

He watched until his watch started beeping his 10 second countdown. He reached down, grabbing the handle of the gear bag, and wrapping it around his wrist, waiting as his breath stopped, his eyes blurred, and the purple-orange-blue light wrapped around him and yanked him backwards.

\--

Michael’s loft was midnight dark, the soft light of the city through the tall windows gilding the edges of the bookcase, silvering the leaves of the olive trees, glinting across the shelf of treasures above the bed. And Michael -- he was like carved marble as he slept bare, flopped over on his stomach, head pillowed on his arm and the other flung out, muscles fluid and skin bare in the lowlight. Alex wanted to call out his name, but his muscles were locked. He stank of Gulf water, and his hands still had the blood red paint scattered across them. He didn’t want to touch Michael, not like this. Not how he was.

Alex watched him breathe, his back shifting slowly up and down, like the swells of quiet waves. He had the red saddle blanket wrapped across his hips, slicing up across his back, red turning to shadow on the other side of his body. For a moment, Alex couldn’t see his legs, couldn’t see the shape of them under the blankets, and it was a jagged thought, an awful one -- what if something had happened to Michael since he saw him last? What if he'd been hurt? A year was a long time.

Alex knelt up and reached over, fitting his hand around his left ankle under the thin sheet; then his right one. He felt him ease awake, watched his whiskeyshine eyes blink sleepily open, face soft with sleep. Alex yanked his hand back, fist tight against his stomach.

“Alex?” he murmured, shifting to his side to see him more clearly. 

Alex barely managed a nod, staying kneeling, body swaying with tension and exhaustion and the terrible dual impulse to sprint away from here and also start sobbing.

Michael propped himself up on his elbow, expression still half-asleep. “Alex, what’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “I’m --” he wanted to say _fine_. But it didn’t come out, smell of the Gulf too strong. “I’m --” _ok_ , but it stuck in the sand in his throat. He put his hand to his throat, like that might help the words come up; without him asking, it rose to cover his mouth, and he whispered. “I don’t think I’m the good guy.”

Michael blinked for a moment and then held out his arms. When Alex didn’t move, he nudged him a little with his powers.

“I can’t, I’ve got dirt on my boots,” Alex muttered, still swaying towards the bed.

“Sheets wash. C’mere.” Alex leaned forward, body feeling so, so heavy, and crawled towards Michael, feeling his hand slide up his arm as soon as he was in reach. He stayed on all fours when he got to the head of the bed, unsure how to move here, and Michael pressed down on his shoulder with a gentle hand, getting him to lay flat beside him. Alex stayed still as Michael curled himself around him, let himself move so he was half under the covers. Alex tucked his head into the center of Michael’s chest, face pressed just below the gently glowing implant and into the fine hair there, the rough texture and the warm smell more than enough to hold him _here_. Just here.

Michael’s hand was soft, even as it traced itself up and down his back. Alex heard a harsh breath, and realized it was him. Another; something more like a gasp. His body shook, his arm wrapping around Michael’s waist, like if he didn’t hold onto him he would drown. Michael moved closer to him, voice soft.

“You kept your promise. You stayed safe. You came back to me. That’s good enough for tonight.”

Alex shook his head. “People died. I showed up and people died.”

Michael accepted that with a quiet breath.

Alex needed him to understand, needed him to _know_ : “They died, Michael. I saw them --” and he couldn’t bear to say it, couldn’t bring that here, to this gentle, brilliant man who held him so carefully in his arms.

“Tell me.” Michael said, voice soft. “I don’t want you protecting me from it. I want to know, so _you’ll_ know you’re not hiding anything from me. I know who you are, Alex. Nothing you’re going to tell me is going to change that. So: tell me.”

“Last time, the mission before this, it was Gaza in 2010. Before that, Oman in 1998. Oman was -- good. Prevented a nuclear weapon’s test.”

“Sounds like an objectively good thing.”

Alex barreled on, shoulders relaxing against Michael’s without him telling it to, just from hearing his voice. “Then Gaza, which was -- awful. Ugly and beautiful and sad and heart wrenching and brave and brilliant and it just, it _hurts_ to go in there, it _hurts_ to leave. And the mission was -- fine. Good. Hamas is trash and they should get infected by spyware and fail. Fine.”

Michael’s voice was still slow, still clouded by sleep as he spoke into the night air: “You’re still allowed to be hurt by missions that go well, or do something you like. A good outcome doesn’t mean you didn’t also get traumatized by it.”

Alex's voice was thin, uncertain: “I just -- what if _every_ mission is traumatizing? What do I do _then_?”

Michael took a long, slow breath, hand steady in the middle of Alex’s back: “I don’t know, Alex. I know I want you safe. I want you to have space to heal. If that means I don’t see you --”

“ _No_ \-- _”_

 _“If that means I don’t see you_ ,” he insisted, pressing his lips into Alex’s hair, “then I’ll come and find you. January 1st, 2019, New Year’s Day, I’ll be waiting for you at the bar at Crashdown. I’ll come find you. 6 years, Alex. If you need to, if you have to, get out of there. I’ll come to you.”

“I just,” Alex said, voice small, “I just can’t accept that me, one man, being miserable is too high a price to pay for all the good I could do, _am_ doing. Missions like this, missions that hurt people, that are so fucked up, they’re awful. But sometimes, I --”

“You change history, Alex. That’s something to be proud of. I’m proud of you for it." Michael's voice was low, easy. "But if it’s hurting you, you deserve to be ok. I don’t know how to do the ethical math -- I have to take ethics this semester for my med school degree, you would not believe the idiots who want to be doctors -- but I know you deserve better than you've got.”

Alex shook his head, eyes slamming shut: “I don’t. I don’t, Michael. I don't,” and he pressed his forehead harder to his chest, like if he could only hold on tight enough, his whole body would cooperate, he could force himself to being a better person, a _good_ person, for once.

“Hey, hey,” Michael said, pulling away, and Alex choked, sure this had been it, this had been the weakness that made Michael see who he really was, how awful he was.

But Michael was just sliding down the bed, moving along Alex’s body so he could cup Alex’s cheeks, press his forehead to Alex’s, all serious eyes and whispering lips: “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you do. And I’m not going to argue with you about it, I’m not going to try to convince you.” Alex tried to breathe in the reality of Michael in his arms, to be _here_ , to stay _here_. Michael was still speaking: ”Just know that I know you. And, hey,” Alex opened his eyes, looking into Michael’s. “I know I had this whole plan, flowers and chocolates and stuff, but I think you need to know now, need to hear it now.” He took a breath -- and Alex held his finger up, pressing it flush against Michael’s lips.

“I --” he started; paused. “I want, when you say what I think you’re going to say, I want it to be with roses. Or dark chocolates or on a mountain -- something. Not like this, not as a bandaid to a wound I can’t hide. Wasn't really trying to hide, because I knew I could trust you to see me bleeding. But, for us, for you, maybe even for me, when you say it, I want it to be real, to be the start of something new, something easier between us. I want something, some part of us, to be protected from all of this. Not because I’m hiding it, but because -- I want something better. For us. Than I've had, before. I think _we_ deserve that.”

“It would be real, if I said it,” Michael said, voice soft, “It would be real.” He put his palm over the device in Alex’s chest, pulling Alex’s hand to press it tight over his. “But you know, right? You know how I feel. How much I --” he smirked. “This feels silly, not just saying it.”

Alex felt the ghost of a smile rising, and leaned forward, pressing his lips to Michael’s softly. “I know. That's -- that's how I feel too. But saying it -- it’ll be something to look forward to. For the soft moment when we can say it.”

“So we’re just going to wait until you happen to appear at a sufficiently romantic location?” Michael said, the twinkle in his eyes giving the lie to his snippy-sounding words.

“Guess so,” Alex said with a smirk, flexing his hand against his chest and Michael cracked up.

“Did you want to wait on other stuff, was last time too fast for you --”

Alex shook his head, tugging Michael's hand around to his mouth and pressing a kiss to Michael’s palm. “Absolutely fucking not. I don’t want to wait on getting to feel you, touch you, make you feel good.”

“Me either,” Michael said, pausing. “Though, if you keep showing up in the middle of the night, that’s gonna be hard to make any progress on that front. As you’ve seen, I don’t wake up fast.”

“You know,” Alex said, voice soft, “I think that’s a trauma thing? Waking up 100% ready to go? I’m not sure, but most of my new friends, they seem to wake up slow and easy, not dead-to-the-world to ready-to-fight in 2 seconds.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, “That sounds about right.” He took a breath. “How are we for time?”

Alex checked his watch: 526 seconds left. He showed it to Michael.

“Can --” Alex paused, blinking for a moment. “Since you're tired, could you just, hold onto me? Would that be ok?”

“I’d love to hold you, Alex,” Michael said. “Go on, roll over.”

“What?”

“You wanna be big spoon?”

Alex shook his head. 

“Then roll on over to your side. Give me like a 30 second warning when we need to get 6 feet apart, I don’t feel like it’ll be easy for me to let you go this time.”

“Ok,” Alex said, and carefully disentangled his leg and prosthetic from Michael’s sheets, turning onto his side and holding still. Michael tucked his arm around his stomach, moving his hips until they pressed against Alex’s, bare chest flat to his back.

Alex paused, then asked: “Can I -- do you mind if I take off my shirt?”

“Oh no, a beautiful shirtless man in my bed, whatever shall I do,” Michael said, a smirk in his voice. Alex rolled his eyes and shucked his shirt, tossing it on top of his SCUBA gear-filled bag. When he lay back down, he felt the whole wide expanse of Michael’s skin against his, and it felt like -- _like reading a book, like jumping into a skin-warm ocean, like being in love._ All those feelings, all that skin. It was incredible and he heard himself sigh as he relaxed fully against him.

Michael’s arm was under his head, taking his resting weight, and he reached out, interlacing their fingers. “I fantasized about this,” Alex murmured. “About touching you.”

He heard a pleased rumble against his back before it reached his ears, Michael's fingers tracing small, meaningless patterns around his navel. “Yeah? Sounds like me just about every night.”

“It was -- good. We had a place, it was ours, you had a job you loved, I had a job I loved, we got off on the couch together before dinner.”

He could nearly hear the smile in Michael’s voice. “Yeah? What’d we do.”

“Hmm,” Alex said, rubbing his thumb along the side of Michael's. "We kissed and you told me about your day."

"Sounds very domestic."

"They I pulled you on top of me and we jerked each other off."

"There we go, that's more like it."

"It doesn't bother you, me thinking about it?"

There was confused pause. "Did you just ask if I was bothered by starring in your sex fantasies, Alex?"

"I mean -- I don't know what the boundaries are. Usually it feels -- rude -- to include other people in fantasies. The rare times I've had time to think through a whole fantasy."

"I don't know about other people, but from me, Alex, you have carte blanche to think about having sex with me anytime you want. Do _you_ have a problem with _me_ \--"

"Hell no, the thought of you thinking of me -- it's really nice. It's -- it good, Michael. Really good."

"Glad to hear it, because I really wasn't wanting to apologize for 8 years worth of jacking off."

"That is never not going to be weird." Alex said, turning his head to kiss the inside of Michael's arm.

"What?"

"For the rest of our lives, you're going ot have known me for longer than I've known you."

"True," Michael said. "But, looking at it from another way, we'll have known each other for both 20 years for me, and two months for you, about 30 hours for both of us together."

Alex did the math in his head. "Yeah, so we're actually moving pretty fast."

Michael chuckled and Alex grinned, the smile feeling real and wonderful. Michael's breathing slipped into a slower register, and Alex matched it, letting the minutes slip by. Their bodies were building their own language, sharing something about touch, about trust, about safety. He could imagine falling asleep with him, so, so clearly. Maybe not all wrapped-up in each other every night, but sometimes. Some nights. Nights when the world was too much and he needed someone to hold onto. Someone who _knew_ him and loved him anyway.

He checked his watch: 45 seconds.

"I've got to head out."

Michael sighed, squeezing him once, tight, around the stomach, and then easing back up. Alex sat up and felt something jingle on the bed, and wondered why Michael was keeping spare change in his sheets. He shook his head, leaning down to press a solid, lingering kiss to Michael's lips. Michael's hands tangled in his hair, holding him close for long, precious seconds.

Then he let him go.

Alex moved over to the corner, hefting the SCUBA gear bag.

"Stay safe, Michael. I'll see you in 2013."

"You too. Stay safe, Alex."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boat dancing in the Gulf is still a thing. The dumbest of all possible things, but still a thing: https://news.usni.org/2020/04/15/video-iranian-attack-boats-harass-u-s-navy-coast-guard-vessels-in-persian-gulf


	29. ancient feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Kyle have a discussion about the recovering from abuse and also the Rwandan genocide. Alex has a panic attack after hearing the Colonel's voice. He's ok, but I wanted to give folks a heads-up.
> 
> About the Rwandan genocide piece. That story -- in fact, this whole fic -- owes something of itself to this incredible counter narrative proposed in this article by the diplomat who inspired Clara Power and who, 12 years after writing it, served at the US Ambassador to the United Nations ("Bystanders to Genocide": https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders-to-genocide/304571). If you don't have time for that piece and happen to have an Economist subscription, this obituary covers some of the same ground in under 1000 words and is a major part of how I remember and think about the genocide in Rwanda. I think about it every time one of my friends' countries experiences war, disaster, or bloodshed. I wonder if I'll get a call like the one described in it: https://www.economist.com/obituary/2009/02/19/alison-des-forges
> 
> Updated to add: I forgot to mention that I have worked with several dozen survivors and descendants of survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Not as closely as I have worked with my friends who live in the West Bank and Gaza, but for 3 years I've been in rooms with teams from Rwanda making social impact plans as part of the State Department program I volunteer with, while I was coaching my team. These Rwandan women are not theoretical, they are people I have eaten with, danced with, helped plan their speeches and businesses. This of course does not mean I am portraying their experiences correctly, merely a signal that I am trying to do so.
> 
> Back to this fic. The discussion of what happened in Rwanda in this fic isn't graphic, because that's not how I write about these things, but it does mention the facts and details of the genocide, as well as US and European policymakers' indifference. This should be enraging, but I hope it is not triggering. Leave a comment below if you'd like to skip it, I'll highlight key parts.
> 
> This arc ends with Michael and Alex having a very nice visit together, including some lovely smut, so I promise the rough stuff is balanced out by nice stuff.

Alex opened his eyes in the time chamber to see a few midshipmen looking up at him, technicians all crowded around one end of the room, Flint standing in the middle of the lab. His brother was smirking.

Alex set down his gear bag and grabbed the stool and crutches beside it, dragging their metal legs shrieking over the metal grate. Once he was squarely in front of the sailors, he sat on the stool, propping his prosthetic heel crossbar. One of the midshipmen looked like he was about to start clapping:

Alex’s voice was as cold as iron: “Sergeant Manes, how many men lost limbs because of that mission?” The midshipmens' hands drifted to their sides, eyes widening.

“Captain Manes, I don’t -- “ Flint was reddening, glaring at Alex for the breach in show-pony protocol. Alex could barely see he was so pissed. _That they would_ _clap_ _for this mission --_

He began to roll-up his loose pant leg, exposing the prosthetic: “Sergeant Manes, I repeat, how many men’s legs and arms did we blow off in the last mission?” He kept rolling until he could reach the release valve on the vacuum seal; the midshipmen were stony-faced and silent. Alex unhitched the prosthetic and set it to the side, his leg exposed.

“Captain Manes, this isn’t --”

“Are you refusing to give me the outcome report on my mission, sir?” Alex asked, and he saw some of the midshipmen’s eyes slip over to look at Flint before sliding back to front. Everyone had shifted their bodies into parade rest, shoulders back, eyes in the middle distance. _Hiding_.

Flint looked down into his post-mission briefing in the red folder in his hands. “No,” Flint said. “There were no American casualties.”

“Iranian?”

“Captain Manes, this was a military mission, and in war there are casualties --”

Alex looked down at hands resting upturned on his thighs, feeling the cool air of the time chamber on his residual limb, knowing the scars reflected cooly in the blue light. He looked up at Flint and gave a long, hard blink. The midshipmen did not appear to be breathing.

“Sergeant Manes, I request a list of all of the casualties, on both sides, of the mission I just participated in.” He kept his voice even and clear, conscious of the cameras and microphones in the room. “I had confirmed -- twice -- that non-lethal ordinance would be used, as the Time Analysts believed that best fit our requesting agency’s objectives for the mission. When I arrived, that order had been modified, and lethal ordinance substituted. I requested the commander use the munitions described in the brief and approved by the requesting agency. My request was denied. Twice. Where was the mix-up?”

“Captain Manes, this is not the time or place to discuss this.”

Alex shook his head slowly, keeping his hands soft and open. An obvious non-threat inside a steel and glass fishbowl. “I’m perfectly comfortable discussing it right now,” he paused. “Are you uncomfortable?”

Flint was clearly speaking between gritted teeth. “I will investigate where the miscommunication originated.”

Alex held the silence like it was glass, sharp and cutting.

Flint caved: “And I will share Iranian casualties, if any.”

Alex couldn't keep his voice even and couldn’t stop himself from saying in an undertone the midshipman had to lean in to hear: “There were bodies in the water, Sergeant Manes. Limbs. I know I killed people today.”

Flint had nothing to say to that. Before his temper could get the better of him, he turned and stalked towards the doors. Kyle leaned into the microphone, saying quietly: “Seaman, please follow Sergeant Manes to the reception room.”

Once they had left the room, Alex began to unbuckle his pants, when Kyle’s voice cut in.

“Alex, wait a second.” A paused. “Is everybody ready?”

Alex froze, looking over at where the lab techs had all stayed, crowded against the side wall of the lab. Then -- moving as one -- all of the technicians grabbed big pieces of what looked like opaque blue windows that had been leaning behind the consoles, striding towards Alex in the time chamber. He glanced at Kyle, uncertain, but he just gave him a thumbs-up.

Marcie was the first to set hers down, unfolding it up, and up, and -- Alex gasped, a grin sweeping across his face.

Screens. They’d bought screens, were setting them up around the time chamber. Alex watched as first one part of the lab, then another, then another became blocked from his view. For a long moment, he turned around, pivoting on his heel.

Alex felt a pressure behind his eyes, found himself blinking rapidly to clear them. He swallowed and said, voice hushed. 

“Thank you all.”

“No problem, call out when you’re ready for the decontamination gas.”

“Ok.” Alex said.

And for the first time in 10 years of time travel, he didn’t shove himself out of his clothes, zippers scraping and seams chaffing. He was able to undress carefully, give his exhausted muscles their own time, let his body move in the ways it was most comfortable. It didn’t take that much longer according to his internal clock, as he sat there, naked and a little chilly, he felt -- different. Not a weapon.

A man.

He folded his clothes into the go box, noticing the assorted pennies he’d scrounged from the poker game didn’t jingle in his pants pocket. _That must have been what slipped out on Michael’s bed_. “Ready,” he called out.

He held his breath as the gas filled the chamber and quickly dissipated. Swung over to the go box on the crutches to get his change of clothes and -- on top of his spare prosthetic, as carefully folded as when he’d laid it in the box on his last mission, was Michael’s white henley.

\--

Alex rode his bike home, feeling the sage-singed wind whip through Michael’s shirt, stinging his skin with the near-perfect pressure of a warm New Mexico night. His mind was humming, fuzzy and relaxed and exhausted and stinging from the confrontation with Flint, but also, incredibly, joyously happy. It came in an overwhelming moment, right as he took a turn on the highway that would bring him to downtown. _He’d stood up to Flint. He’d seen injustice and he’d taken steps to correcting it. And Michael cared for him, knew him, and liked him anyway_.

It was not a bad fucking day. Not a bad fucking day at all.

Alex and Kyle arrived at the apartment at about the same time, nodding to each other. Alex used his key to get into the apartment, murmuring: “I’m gonna crash.”

“Go for it. You up for a run in the morning?”

“Yep,” he said. He swung past the front window, kneeling to water the olive tree -- it now had 3 leaves above the soil, slender and curling, so, so green on their faces and a felt-furred silver on their backs.

“You ok, after that conversation with Flint?”

Alex looked at Kyle over his shoulder, his friend’s kind face worried. “It’ll probably hit while I’m sleeping, responsibility nightmares about failing to uphold family standards, messing with the chain of command. But for now, I’m pretty good.”

“It was a big thing, fighting back on that point. I’m sorry you had to see people die.”

“They would have lived if I hadn’t shared the intel. I did what I could to protect them, but I didn’t just see people die. I killed them, Kyle.”

Kyle frowned. “Then, and I’m not trying to be dick, I’m just trying to understand, why are you in a good mood?”

Alex felt a grim smile move across his face. “Because, for the first time I can remember, I did something wrong and then I did something about it. Not just in the moment, but in a way that might fix a problem going forward. It’s like -- it’s like I’ve always seen the world in systems. But I always thought I was outside of them, the exception, the one who it didn’t matter what I did, didn’t matter who I was, the systems I was a part of were too much, too heavy to shift. But,” he paused, taking a hard breath. “But that’s not really true. And that’s a massive responsibility, but it’s also,” he pushed himself to his feet. “That’s also a huge fucking deal.” He tucked a secret smile into his cheek. “Also, I got to see Michael and he was really sleepy and sweet and I’m going to go to bed wearing his shirt and it’s just --” his eyes drifted to the rug on the wall, and he shifted his jaw. “I didn’t think I would get this. In my life. I didn’t think I would get to be happy, to fix things. I thought that was a next-life promise I made to myself, to survive and then, in the next life, I could begin to undo some of this cruelty, some of this harm. But, I -- “ he felt his eyes light up, smile moving across them, “Sometime, like right now, it feels like I can really, actually fix it. Fix things.”

He looked over and Kyle’s face was soft, eyes damp. “I’m really fucking glad for you Alex. That’s -- that’s all huge.”

“It’s not something that would have happened without you. You’ve been the reason I had space to think, space to question.” He squared his shoulders. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “When you gave Michael his tuition money, how did you tell him he could cancel out his debt to you?”

“I told him to pass it on.”

“Same here. Free someone else the way you’re feeling free, right now.”

“I don't know if I can.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, voice quiet. “I know you can.” 

And then on that mysterious note, he headed down the hall to his own bedroom.

Alex followed slowly, shutting the door to his room and carefully getting ready for bed. He kept the shirt on, kept the slightly-scratchy, warm feeling of it close to his skin. Patrice had scoured any smell of Michael out of it, but Alex could remember what it felt like to sneak his fingertips under the hem of it, to feel Michael’s chest heaving against it.

He tipped himself onto his front, fiddling with the edge of the shirt, rolling and re-rolling the double-stitched hem between his fingers.

He took a long breath.

Then he pulled out his phone, opened the browser and typed in Psychology Today. In the quiet dark of the room, listening to the pipes as Kyle took his nighttime shower, he looked through the different specialties. He clicked -- anger management, career counseling, chronic pain, coping skills, domestic violence, domestic abuse, emotional disturbance, family conflict, grief, life coaching, life transitions, men's issues, peer relationships, racial identity, relationship issues, self esteem, self-harming, trauma and PTSD. Sexuality: Gay. Gender: Show only Women. Show only Men. He took a breath. He picked one, read her profile, and made himself type a message:

> _Hello,_
> 
> _I am an Airman working through some of my past experiences. I am hoping to see if we would be a good fit for therapy. I will be available to call tomorrow and in two days._
> 
> _Alex Manes_

And he left his personal cellphone number and his freshly-made personal email.

He’d closed his eyes when he had a thought. He had to rummage in his side table to find it, but he pulled out the two cards from the Congressional reception. He shown his phone’s light on it, reading the email aloud to himself before typing it in:

> _Dear Undersecretary Power,_
> 
> _It was a pleasure meeting you. I’m still thinking about the question you asked, but wanted to let you know, I took your advice. People don’t know what’s wrong unless you tell them; and even they know, being told makes sure everyone knows they know._
> 
> _I hope DC is treating you well,_
> 
> _Alex Manes_

And with that, Alex finally let his spinning, whirling mind crank down to its lowest gear. He imagined Michael’s arm heavy and welcoming over his back, his soft breathing beside him. He imagined a night they could hold onto each other as long as they wanted, as long as they needed. 

And he drifted off to a pleasant, dreamless sleep.

\--

“It looks like you made a special friend,” Flint’s voice was nasty and sharp in Alex’s earbuds as he made eggs before his and Kyle’s run; Kyle was gently worshipping his cup of coffee at the dining room table, eyes at half-mast. “You’ve got a mission request straight from the State Department.”

“Where is it?”

“Beirut, December 2009.”

“Target?”

Flint’s voice dropped into a professional register; finally, ground they could communicate on. “Money drop, building capacity for refugees in Lebanon if we can’t fix Syria.”

Alex shook his head, getting out two plates and two forks, setting them on the counter. He looked down, enjoying the way Michael’s henley fit across his chest. “We’ll fix it; the last Somalia mission stopped the Rwandan genocide.”

Kyle flashed massive, shocked eyes at him, mouthing ‘Genocide?’ Alex shook his head, holding up his hand so he could finish the conversation. 

There was a snort from Flint. “Removing the Mogadishu Line was one thing; there’s no way the Arab spring isn’t going to lead to bloodshed in Syria.”

Alex shrugged one shoulder, turning the omelet in the pan. “I trust the Time Analysts to vet requesting agency's whims. If they say this mission from State will help, then it’ll help.” He paused, hating to interrupt what might be the most civil conversation he and Flint had had in weeks; but he couldn’t let the day before slide. “Any timeline on when I can get the casualty count from the last mission?”

A long moment, and he could feel Flint’s burning stare like he was standing in front of him, glaring at him from across their shared room, standing over him as he slept. “You’re lucky your friend’s deal is protecting you or I would have you out of the Time Agency before you could --” and Alex heard a sharply barked:

“Flint!”

Alex’s blood ran cold.

The Colonel. The Colonel was listening to the conversation. His heart rate began to kick up, his hands tingling, his grip on the spatula spasming. _What the hell_ , he thought, _I didn’t used to have that reaction in the middle of a_ _beating_ _, why is it like this_ _now?_

He tried to refocus: he was in Kyle’s kitchen, it was still dark outside, he was wearing comfortable clothes and a prosthetic built for running. He was safe.

He heard the Colonel’s voice again and hung up the phone, trying to cover his hitching breathing.

“Alex?” Kyle asked and Alex shook his head, holding up his hand. _What had Rosa said, what had Rosa said, about grounding, about --_

“Hey,” Kyle said, closer now, _I didn’t hear him move, what the_ _fuck_ \--

Alex jerked back and dropped the spatula with a clatter.

“Why,” he said, staring down at his shaking hands, “Why is this worse? I just heard the Colonel’s voice on the phone, I used to face him, face _beatings_ at _work_ and I never,” he covered his mouth with his cold fingers. “What the _fuck_ , is _wrong with me_.”

Kyle turned off the burner, sitting on the kitchen floor, crossing his bare legs. Alex looked down at him and Kyle looked back up expectantly. Alex sank to the ground, and immediately felt a little better, more stable.

Kyle took a deep breath and Alex watched. Another, and Alex copied him.

Kyle reached over, fishing a trivet out of the drawer and pulling the two plates down, arranging them on the kitchen floor without dropping the forks. Alex pulled his knees to his chest, watching Kyle work, trying to breathe. Kyle carefully pulled the still-hot pan off the stove, cutting the omelet in two with his fork and plating move, setting the hot pan on the trivet.

“So,” he said, cutting off a piece of the omelet. “Here’s the thing.”

He took a bite, chewing it and swallowing. 

“You were unsafe for a long, long time. You were really, really scared. For a long, long time. You were physically insecure and to survive, you had to be tense, be prepared to act all the time. Against any threat; and most of those were threats you had to pretend weren’t really threats at all, because you were supposed to pretend everything was fine. Anxiety, trauma, they involve the sympathetic nervous system. The body keeps the score. And in the past few weeks, because of your hard work and the love of people around you, you’ve been getting to experience bits of time where you felt safe. Not just could convince yourself to appear relaxed or pass out because you were exhausted, but actually, really, your body knew for a few minutes at a time that you were safe.”

He took another bite, gesturing to Alex; Alex slid over a little, cutting off a piece of the omelet; it was getting better. He hadn’t even burned the poblano peppers this time.

Kyle kept going: “Recovery is non-linear. It just is. But the thing is, in a very real way, you’re trying to heal while you’re still being hurt. You’re physically unsafe in every single mission. Sometimes you’re physically and emotionally unsafe at work. It would be like trying to heal from the trauma of a global pandemic while it’s still going on, or trying to heal from racist police violence while seeing that violence still occur in your community and in your media.”

Kyle looked at him, eyes steady and expression firm. “You’re still surviving, most of the time. You’re still surviving abuse and violence, fear and scarcity. Less than before, but you still are. And you’re making huge steps, fucking amazing ones. Standing up for those men they forced you to kill? Demanding privacy? Talking to elected officials, trying to fix the system? Fucking amazing, Alex. That doesn’t even get to how giving, kind, and brave you’ve been in trying something with Michael. A lot of people with your experiences, they take years to get where you are. That’s luck, and that’s not expected, and it’s amazing. But back to what just happened.”

Kyle at the last bite: “If I had to guess, you were feeling pretty good this morning, right?”

Alex nodded, wishing he could enjoy the eggs as much as he had before the -- _the panic attack_ started. But still, it was protein. 

Kyle gave him half a smile: “So, you slept in Michael’s shirt -- because I know you didn’t buy that shirt in Oman.”

Alex looked carefully at his omelet to avoid his blush showing too much. 

Kyle sounded self-satisfied: “You wake up. You had a good-ish day yesterday, setting a boundary with Flint, seeing the outcome of your setting a boundary with the lab techs --”

“I also reached out to a therapist and emailed one of the diplomats I met, to start a conversation about how to fix the Time Agency.”

Kyle shook his head with a grin. “Fucking amazing stuff, Alex. And so you were, if I had to guess, this morning you were feeling safe. Not necessarily comfortable, but your body had decided, for a few minutes this morning at least, it was ok to be soft. To be ok.”

“I think so,” he said, trying to focus on the slightly-mealy texture of the peppers, “I think that’s right.”

“And then you get a call from your brother. And you’re handling it ok, though it sounded like Flint was being an asshole --”

Alex didn’t say anything.

“And you were handling that just fine. Maybe a little stiff, but you were sounding professional, sounding like you felt comfortable arguing with him, pushing back in the normal give-and-take of a professional relationship.”

Kyle took a breath, gathering the last crumbs of egg onto his fork. “Then you hear your father’s voice. Your first abuser, your major fear. And it -- “ Kyle huffed out a breath. “The way my friends have described it, is like, it’s like being thrown back into the pit. Like, you’d just climbed up the edge, just gotten away from the cage fight -- and you hear them, see them, smell them, see someone with their body type, their tone of voice, their accent -- and you’re back in the pit. But since you’d been climbing out, you don’t have your armor on, you’re not covered in mud, your calluses have softened up. And your body is trying to protect you, telling you that you need to be ready to fight-fight-fight. But you’re not _prepared_ because you were, for a few minutes at least, _relaxed_.”

Kyle gave a heavy sigh. “And that doesn’t mean you were stupid or dumb for relaxing. You _should_ be able to relax, Alex. You _deserve_ to. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong that hearing his voice or having to interact with him hits you harder than it used to. It’s actually a big sign of progress.”

“It’s not safe,” Alex said, setting his fork down on the stoneware with a click he had the sinking feeling would make him jump if he hadn’t been the one doing it. “I still have to work with him.”

Kyle’s face clouded. “Yeah. That’s what I was trying to say, about the trauma being ongoing. So, like, I’d say, try to forgive yourself, when stuff like this happens. When it’s not linear. When you backslide or miss a goal or act a way you wish you hadn’t, that you _wouldn’t_ if you weren’t still, actively, being traumatized.” He learned forward, face serious. “It’s going to be a long time, recovering. It just is. And you’ve got so many people who care for you. You’ll have time, but your job is to survive this. Survive until you can get the space you need to heal.”

He set his fork down, and leaned back a little, seeming to give Alex some physical space to think.

Alex bit his lip, licking the salt off of it. “I think -- I wish it could be linear. I wish I could be better today than I was today, and know I’ll be even better tomorrow.”

“Don’t we all.”

“And I wish I could stay safe, could feel like I felt before I moved in here -- not safe, because I know, I can see, how it was, wasn’t good. Wasn’t safe. But it felt -- “ he took a breath. “Predictable. If I was already prepared, always ready to respond, I knew what I was in for. I knew how to respond. I feel like I’ve grown -- or grown to show -- all of these soft, vulnerable parts of me, and I don’t know how to protect them now they’re here.”

He picked at a bit of egg on the fork. “It’s like -- there’s these turtles, in Sierra Leone. Leatherbacks. There was one at the hotel where I was staying in Salone, the Family Kingdom Resort. They kept it in a fountain. Massive things, a meter long and just about that wide. But these turtles, they don’t have shells. I feel like I’ve lived my whole life as a turtle with a shell, someplace quiet I could pull back into when the pain or the fear or the whatever was too bad. And in the past month or so, I've been slowly changing species, losing my shell, and that’s good, sometimes. I can feel things, more. I can enjoy things. I can --” he swallowed. “I can make friends. I can feel love that doesn’t just feel like a broken bone. That’s -- that’s the good stuff. But it’s also, hard. Knowing I can be hurt now. Hurt differently, than I was before. Worse, maybe.”

“If I could get you out of the Time Agency right now, I would Alex. Believe me on that if nothing else, ever. If you ever have cause to doubt anything else I say, just know: I want you out of that place. It is so, so, so bad for you.”

Alex tangled his fingers in the white henley he’d slept in. “You looked shocked, when I mentioned the Rwandan genocide.”

Kyle blinked, pivoting on the floor to lean his shoulders back against the cabinets.

“I didn’t know there was a genocide in Rwanda.”

“For you, there wasn’t. For me, in a three-month period in 1994, mostly Hutu people killed 70% of Tutsi people in Rwanda, plus other Hutus. Between half and a full million dead.”

"Mother of God." Kyle’s face was shocked, pained; then it clicked. “And you stopped it?”

Alex nodded. “It’s -- remember when I told you about the 'Mogadishu Line'? When I came back from Somalia?”

Kyle nodded, eyes still wide and shocky: “It was -- how US policymakers justified refusing to intervene in war crimes, human rights abuses, genocide.”

“Yeah. On my first pass through my timeline, after 18 US soldiers died bloody and on television in the streets of Mogadishu in October of 1993, the United States government lost its taste entirely for intervening in Africa. In April 1994, Hutu militia radio stations began instructing people to ‘kill all the cockroaches;’ that was the signal to start. They used open radio bands -- jammable radio bands -- to coordinate the planned attacks. The UN General in Rwanda in charge of enforcing the Arusha peace accords had requested troops, had requested authorization to raid weapons depots that some Hutu militiamen had been assembling for over a year; he'd asked for permission to jam the radio frequencies being used by genocidaires. The United States closed the embassy, leaving 35 of its Tutsi employees to be executed. UN Peacekeepers evacuated European and non-Rwandan employees, leaving 2000 Rwandan people to be murdered at the airport.”

Alex knew his voice was flat, harsh; but he needed Kyle to _see_. Needed him to _understand_. For all of Rosa’s affectionate needling about his shitty job, Kyle and Michael were the only ones he could tell about what he’d done; and Kyle wouldn’t even remember the past timelines enough to really understand.

Nevertheless, he took a breath. “There was this feel-good movie about it, starring Don Cheadle. _Hotel Rwanda_. About him running a hotel, saving people from being executed by militiamen. That's how most people know about it. There was another real hotel operator who was able to dissuade militiamen from killing those people sheltering in his hotel by having US diplomats speak on the phone to the militia leaders.”

He closed his eyes. “In this timeline, your timeline, there was no Mogadishu Line. The UN commander got the full complement of 5000, well-trained troops he asked for at the beginning of his mission. He raided the Hutu militia supply depots. He convinced the UN not to send so many machetes to help people harvest the crops, so there weren't;t warehouses full of shiny new steel, waiting to be stolen. When the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda’s plane went down, the UN commander jammed the general and militia radio stations, protected Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who in both of our timelines was the second ever female African head of state but on my first pass through was murdered during the genocide, leaving the country leaderless. Militia men spent months trying to start a genocide; but without weapons, communications, or major victories, and with 5000 well-armed UN Peacekeepers given permission to fire when fired upon, there was no genocide. People died, there was no genocide.”

“But Alex, thousands and thousands of people had to make thousands and thousands of choices to make that happen --”

Alex shook his head: “You really think so? One or two policy advisors makes a recommendation to the United States President who authorizes the troops. The tone around African politics is different in the White House because a few powerful people feel less embarrassed. In my timeline, the UN commander didn’t even _ask_ for the 5,000 troops he thought he needed, because he was told there was no point in asking for what he would never get. He had 2,500, ill-equipped, ill-trained soldiers, with no support from leadership who were still reeling after what happened to UN Peacekeepers in Mogadishu. A few people, a different tone, a little bit of money here or there -- that’s all it’s ever taken." Alex paused: "Once you can see everything in hindsight. That's the whole point of the Time Agency.” He swallowed: “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I do this.”

“I refuse to accept that there’s no other way to do this.” Kyle said. “I refuse to accept you have to martyr yourself for the greater good and I believe, I _know_ there’s a way to fix it. Change something about time travel so people can travel anywhere, anywhen. _Something_.”

“Who’s going to make those changes? We’re all using technology developed 35 years ago by the aliens. Nothing’s been added since I had Caulfield closed down -- and in the timeline before I did that, no new research was developed by the prisoners after the mid-80s. Go figure, torture and prison does not for innovative ideas make. That’s why the Colonel was so desperate for the new tech whoever you called promised him. Because it’s probably the first bite at innovation he’s had in his entire career.”

Kyle was biting his lip. “Just -- just don’t give up hope that there’s a way out, Alex. Just don’t give up hope.”

Alex tipped his head back against the cabinets. “I don’t think I thought a lot about hope, in the time before. Lately, though,” and he fiddled with the bottom of the white henley, “lately I’ve been learning.”

\--

Alex opened his eyes in the sunny streets of Beirut in December 2009, back against the wall of a quiet alley. He took a breath, and then another.

It smelled of the sea.

Also, garbage. 

But less of garbage than it had on his first pass through. It seemed like the inventor he’d dropped a grant off with at the Monastery of Qozhaya in 2006 had made a real impact in her home city. He hitched his backpack over his shoulder, stood, stretched, and let his eyes adjust to the bright Mediterrenian morning light.

Alex crept out to where the alley t-boned the broad, basalt-paved plaza. There he saw himself, at 19, sitting at the base of a statue pierced with bulletholes from the civil war that had mostly ended before he was born. He had a book in hand, shoulders slumped, alone in the early morning quiet.

He remembered this day. His father had had a layover in Beirut on their way back to Baghdad. He’d gone to meet with a scientist he was trying to recruit for the Time Agency, giving Alex exactly enough Lebanese lira for lunch and not enough for a taxi, and told him to meet him back at the hotel at 9pm.

Alex had started walking as soon as his father was through the revolving doors, ducking out the back of the hotel, through the kitchen, borrowed guidebook from the maître d'hôtel in-hand. He’d walked as far and as free as he could, until his stomach had started to cramp -- and then he’d remembered his father had canceled their breakfast. He’d looked at the lira in his pocket, tried a few pastry shops, found nothing he could afford, and he'd pushed down his frustration at himself.

He’d found this plaza and sat here, losing himself in the guidebook’s descriptions of museums he couldn’t afford to enter, plays he couldn’t afford to see, tours he couldn’t afford to take. After a few hours, he’d walked himself down to the beach, and sat there. Nearly everywhere in the world, the sea was free.

Alex watched himself stand, stretch, body young and whole. Untried. His first year as a Time Agent had only had 2 missions, the rest was research, practice, training, surgery, prep for the mission to take out Bin Laden. That’s why he’d been on that trip to Sierra Leone, to Beirut, and then, to Doha. He wanted to say his 19-year-old self's body had been uninjured, but he remembered the bruises he was carrying under that bulky black jacket, the swelling in his hand and ankle. 

This was 9 years ago. The kid was 19. Alex wanted -- he thought about it. He had more than enough lira for his hotel. There -- there was nothing world changing in giving the kid enough money for a lunch, a real, filling meal.

He didn’t remember talking to himself, and while he could cause an avulsion, he didn’t need to. He didn’t even know what he would say. _Hold on,_ he thought. _They’re coming_ , he thought. _You’ll be saved_.

Instead, Alex put up his dark blue hoodie and strode quickly towards the young man, head down, gait as even as he could make it, knowing it would still show a very slight limp. He slipped enough lira for a taxi ride, a nice lunch and a nice dinner out of his pocket, and dropped it squarely in front of the young man. Then he hurried away, ignoring his own voice’s soft call for his attention.

Alex kept walking. He remembered reading in the guidebook that the city planners, after the war had ended, had decided to not repair many scars of the war across the capital. Dangerous buildings were taken down or propped up, depending on their historicity and price, but bullet holes, blacked marks against walls, the star pattern blasts of card bombs -- those were left. After a few blocks, Alex began to enter the Souq As-Suoaq, better known by the downtown branding team as “Beirut Suoqs.” It was, to put it lightly, not like any other suoq he’d been to in the region. There was an H&M, a Nike, a Pandora; a Puma and a Reebok and a Northface; a Pinkberry, a Dunkin Donuts, and, of course, a Starbucks.

The office of the NGO he was dropping off a grant for $250,000 from the Habemus Tempus Institute was tucked into the back office of the Zara outlet, probably someone’s cousin letting the founder use the space for free while they got her feet under her. Alex slipped his hood off as he entered the store, asking around for the back entrance.

He found the NGO’s founder hunched over a beaten-up third-hand Macbook Pro, maps of potential refugee camps stapled to the unpainted drywall, paint splattered on her black Chucks and skinny jeans, hair wild and free. He introduced himself and handed the money over. He left before she could regain her ability to speak, though he heard a high-pitched screaming as he hustled past the last of the mannequins that indicated she’d recovered quickly.

And then he was -- free. For the day. He wanted to find Michael something fun, something cool to share. But this wasn’t the kind of souq to find a hand carved depiction of a great river or buy seeds for companion plants for the olive trees.

This was a place to buy rings.

Alex shoved that thought to the back of his head. As much as he enjoyed the fantasy of Mr Alex Truman, he was going to see Michael at 28, get to know him then, before doing something so drastic as buying a ring.

Still, he wandered towards the gold market, where the buildings got a little shabbier, and the customers a little less high street.

He was just looking at the only simple band in the window of a small, brightly lit shop -- all the rest were diamonds -- when someone grabbed his arm and spun him around. He slammed his palm into the man’s shoulder, throwing him off and backing up, hands up.

“Alex? Alex Manes?”

Alex blinked, then blinked again.

“Mena?”

It was the young Lebanese man from the Family Kingdom resort in Freetown, the one who’d gossipped with him about the Belgians. That would have been -- only a few months before.

Mena was rubbing his palm against his jaw. “I thought you were _dead_ , Alex! I thought someone had _assassinated you_ in my uncle’s hotel! What the _fuck_ happened?” His voice was a high shout by the end of the sentence and Alex took a careful step forward, adrenaline making its case he should fight or flee; but he kept his hands easy between them.

“I can explain --”

“Explain -- Alex! There were,” and his voice dropped to a harsh whisper, eyes wide, “so many bullet holes. _So much blood._ ” 

“I’m ok, Mena,” Alex said, voice soothing. “Look at me, do I look ok?”

“I could be seeing a ghost. I could be going completely crazy from the trauma of _two Belgian assassins killing a cute man in my uncle’s hotel!_ ” Mena covered his face with his hands, took a hard breath, and then lowered them, looking more composed. “You owe me a tea. For my trauma.”

Alex stifled a laugh. “I’m happy to buy you a whole dinner, Mena. You pick the place.”

Mena turned and stalked away, walking them back through the shining glass, the scattered crowds, and well-swept black basalt pavers of the Beirut Souq. He took them to a French café on the edge of it, beside a large construction with what looked like a partially-collapsed building behind it. Mena collapsed into a seat, scrubbing his hands over his face.

His beard was scruffy, his hair a bit of a mess -- “You started grad school?” Alex asked, switching to French.

“Huh?” Mena said, then blinked. “Uh, yeah. I’m just working at my other uncle’s jewelry store in the evenings and weekends, to cover tuition.”

“Smart.” Alex said, ordering a hot cocoa for himself, resting his hands on the delicately wrought white steel café table. Mena ordered a hot tea and several extra helpings of honey.

“So,” Mena said, as soon as the waiter turned, strings of his black-and-white apron fluttering behind him. “You died.”

“I didn’t,” Alex said. “I really, really didn’t.”

Mena frowned, running his spoon counterclockwise around the inner rim of his tea. “Alex, not to be a boor, but there was, _a lot of blood_.”

“I did get shot,” Alex said, having had the entire walk to concoct a plausible lie. “The two Belgian men did shoot me.”

“Hah!” Mena said, before lowering his voice at the strange glances they got from the other patrons, “Hah, I knew it. I _knew_ it was you.”

“I mean, it was the room you gave me,” and Alex had wondered, a few times, if Mena had been in on the hit. He’d decided he wasn’t -- there was no reason for him to be so rude to the Belgians if they were his co-workers and no reason to be so bitchy about them to Alex in a language they couldn’t speak to build a cover. His entire attitude in the last 10 minutes had confirmed it. _Also those racist fucks would never think to hire the Muslim Lebanese front desk attendant_.

“No! I -- I didn’t have _anything to_ \--”

“I know, I know,” Alex said, “I never thought you did.”

“But how did you escape? We didn’t figure out they had rented out the whole building until that evening -- it had been a wedding party but they’d canceled at the last minute, which is why it had been empty except for you and them and that other guy. And I go to check on,” he paused, stumbling over his words, “I wanted to see if you were up for dinner, since the night before had been fun, and went I got there,” he reached into his hair, tugging it. Alex noticed there were faint white hairs running through it there hadn’t been when he’d last seen him. “Your door was kicked in, Alex. The mattress: covered in bullet holes. The back of it: soaked in blood. The wall, the desk, everything covered in blood.”

Alex had a horrible thought. “Did you have to clean it?”

Mena shook his head. “No, thank God. I hired a crew, bought them all the protective gear, paid them double.” He narrowed his eyes, “I had to buy a new mattress, new carpet, new bureau and everything.”

Alex raised his hands: “Hey, don’t blame me, I’m not the one who tried to assassinate me.”

“But -- why? Alex, why did you get shot in my uncle’s hotel?”

“It was my father,” Alex said, leaning on the lie closest to the truth he could think of. “I come from a, complicated family. There was a disagreement, about our legacy. I was in Sierra Leone getting some space. Turns out, not enough space.”

“Are you ok now, is he --”

“He’s in Beirut right now,” Alex said. “I decided it was prudent to keep my enemies closer.”

Mena’s eyes were wide. “That’s all very 007 of you, but God, that’s awful, Alex. To have a father like that.”

Alex felt it, the pressure on his chest, the hand over his mouth: “Yeah,” Alex said, through it. Taking a breath, forcing his lungs to expand: “Yeah, it is.”

“My stepfather’s great," Mena said, chipper again. "He’s an engineer, designs buildings, fixes them. Actually -- this was my morning coffee break, and I have lunch plans, but do you want to get dinner?”

Alex thought about it. He’d usually head to his hotel and read, more maybe explore. But he couldn’t remember making a friend on his own before, and figured it might be fun to try. As long as he made one thing clear: “I’m taken.”

Mena’s eyebrows hovered up towards his shaggy hairline. “Me too, hot stuff. What, you think you’re going to swoop into my life, looking all American with those cheekbones and sweep me off my feet?” He rolled his eyes. “It’s just dinner with an acquaintance.”

“Then I’d love to.”

“Great, I have someplace you’ll feel right at home. Meet me here, 6 or so, and I’ll show you something you’ll love.”

“Ok.”

Alex watched as Mena hustled back to his uncle’s store, finishing his cocoa and getting a sandwich to go. He had some museums to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who finds visualizations helpful, I answered a nice Anon's ask about how time travel works in this story here and made a little chart: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/620509541512216576/so-this-is-a-long-ask-that-is-going-to-take-a-few


	30. like father, stepfather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I've replaced the tag "dark!Alex" with "assassin!Alex, assassin!Alex, Alex raised without friends, Alex Manes Needs a Hug, Michael Guerin Needs a Hug" because for the past few years, I've had a personal practice of not using the words black/dark/night to mean bad things. This is a part of me doing my small part to try to unpick the ways in which anti-black racism is woven into my home language. I clearly did not succeed in this practice when I used that tag, and I wanted to thank the Roswell 18+ Discord for all of their lovely suggestions on new tags to use instead. 
> 
> For a largest discussion of what white allies in fandom spaces can do to combat anti-BIPOC racism, I wrote something which has been getting a bit of traction here and I would welcome your corrections and feedback: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/620733775118221312/i-finished-upreading-an-important-thread-on-racism
> 
> Also: we're earning even more of our rating in this chapter, dear readers.

Alex caught a taxi away from the Mediterranean, not wanting to accidentally run into with his past self again. He took himself to the Kasskass Park in front of the National Museum of Beirut, sitting on a white-stone bench in the soft midday light, filtered through the shade trees and the sound of a busy city around him. He ate his sandwich slowly, watching the families walk through the formal French garden, reminding himself of the rhythms of the Levantine dialect. Most of the people who would interact with here would want to speak French with him, but they might enjoy hearing someone who was so clearly American speaking their language as well.

The National Museum had been on the front lines of the civil war, warring sides building snipers’ nests around the building. But, the people in the neighborhoods around it had come out -- in some cases walking through crossfire -- to save the collection. Alex bought the ticket he hadn’t had the cash to on his first time around, and spent the afternoon wandering amongst the world’s greatest collection of Phoenician artifacts. His shoes squeaked on the freshly sealed limestone floors, and he had to skip the sarcophagus, the crowd was so dense.

He lingered for a long time around the Roman mosaics, their greys and reds and blue and purples forming faces and hybrid creatures and a disgusted-looking Europa riding a horny-looking-Zeus-the-bull. He’d always liked the idea of mosaics, broken pieces coming together in new ways, to make something wholly new. A mosaicist might use pottery from half-a-dozen different countries, broken dozens of years apart, placing piece after piece after piece beside those from other times, all to make a new pattern. 

There was a small section on ancient fashion; women’s crafts always got short shrift in these kinds of museums. He leaned close to see the embroidery on a Druze wedding veil, each bead carefully secured before going to the next, blooming rosettes made from a single ivory thread.

He liked the look of that thread. Alex experienced his own timeline one day after another -- just sometimes those days were a decade apart. His timeline was linear from his perspective in the same way that embroidery thread is linear from its perspective. A single piece of thread may stitch and loop, swirl and jump. And the finished embroidery would look completely, wildly, totally different if he reached into the case and yanked on the embroidery thread hard enough that it was a straight line again. But he didn't need to; it was beautiful in the shape it made.

He ended-up in the modern wing, a collection of protest signs in cardboard and steel, bullet casings, banners and flags. More than any one political solution to a problem, the small, uncrowded room reminded him of how much work it took for Beirut to become the mostly-peaceful, multi-faith place it was now. There was a section on the 2005 assassination of their Prime Minister, the final expulsion of Syrian troops in the Cedar Revolution, the 2006 war. And yet, the streets were filled with workers, the park was filled with families, and the museums with their shared history as a nation.

Alex wandered towards the small gift shop, buying a small piece of embroidery in a frame, a delicate collection of flowers, woven over and over each other, so each stem overlapped and then crossed under the petals of another. He tucked it in his backpack, thinking of it sitting on Michael’s shelf.

When it got towards closing, Alex caught another taxi back to the Beirut Souq. The driver was mostly quiet, smoking his Winston cigarette out the window, but when they pulled-up to the outside of the mall, he said in gruff French, voice crackling:

“You know this place?”

Alex looked out across the white-stone bricked plaza with a clocktower in the center.

“No, I do not.”

“20 years ago, there were snipers in that tower. You could not have walked from here to there without,” and he made a gargling sound, finger going across his throat. “It was impossible to live here then.”

“So much has been repaired.”

“Not everything,” the man said, taking a turn around a corner and pointing up into the skyline.

“Do you see that?”

Alex looked up and up -- a massive Holiday Inn, gutted, scared by bulletholes, empty eyes glowering over the sparkling downtown. “It’s owned by a Lebanese family and a Kuwaiti family and they can’t decide what to do with it, so there it sits.”

“It was damaged in the war?”

“Only ran for a year, thousands were killed in the fight for it between the militias, the fight for that one and the Phoenicia Inter-Continental. About a 1000 died, mostly thrown from the top. Same thing as the clocktower, the whole battle, it was about the sight-lines. From the top of the Holiday Inn, you can point a rifle at anyone in Beirut.”

And Alex had the thought, which had had in the back of his mind just about anytime he came to a place which had been at war, wondering if the man had seen friends thrown from the roof of the Holiday Inn there; or had done the throwing. _Probably not_. The most common job in a war was civilian, and expecting every person you met in a country recovering from war to have blood on his hands was no way to make friends.

“Thank you for telling me.” 

“I actually prefer that thing to this, fake souq.” He said, taking a corner back towards the mall.

“Why’s that?”

“Saudi money,” he grunted, glaring up at the arcing glass windows. “They paid for it, think they can buy it from us.”

“Buy what?”

“Lebanon.”

The driver came to the other side of the plaza, parking on a side street and pointed to a tiny mosque, maybe the size of two cars parked together. Its white limestone blocks were slotted together and it was empty, hundreds of years old, rising like a holy mushroom out of black basalt of the sidewalk of the square.

“You know the story of that?”

Alex vaguely remembered it from the guidebook, but shook his head to give the man a chance to tell it.

“The Saudi bulldozers, clearing the old market, after the war, they knocked down everything else. Crash-crunch-crash,” the man smacked his stained hands on the wheel, pushing invisible history into the trash, cheery on the smoke nearly snuffing out. “But the bulldozer, it couldn’t crush the mosque. It ran into it and --” he threw up his hands. “They tried a new battery and --” he threw his hands wider. “And then they tried _another_ bulldozer and--” He threw his hands so wide he smacked into the half-rolled-down window. “So,” he said with a grin, “They took that as a sign and protected it. The Imam Ouzai mosque.”

“It’s good they could finally take a hint, I’m sorry to hear they even tried to bulldoze it.”

The man shook his head in disgust. “Saudis.”

Alex thought of the times he’d been in Saudi Arabia, met people good and bad, and held his tongue. He thanked the man, paid for the ride, and hopped out.

As he walked to the café where he was supposed to meet Mena, he thought about the taxi driver’s impression of how the mall was funded. It wasn’t a bad place to invest oil wealth, and the aesthetics fits the Saudi ruling class perfectly. He’d seen that particular look of disgust on a lot of faces when the topic of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, usually called KSA by those living in the region, came up. Their rulers’ habit of aggressively exporting their highly restrictive sect’s beliefs, swinging their money around like oil futures were going to plummet at dawn, and general view of themselves as the center of the Arab world meant that the image of the Saudi bulldozer probably held more cultural currency than it might have if, say, the Turkish government had tried to chip in to rebuild the economic heart of downtown Beirut. Turkey was known for many things in the region, but they never tried to control the two holiest sites in Islam, which naturally bred some resentment.

Mena was sitting just where he’d expected him as Alex approached in the full dark, prosthetic careful on the brick sidewalk. Mena was sipping a cup of coffee and seemed a lot calmer than he had that morning.

Alex sat down, glad to rest his leg.

“Did you go exploring?” Mena asked.

“I did,” Alex said. “I tried out the National Museum and listened to a taxi driver explain how this whole mall was built on Saudi money.”

“Well, it was,” Mena said. Alex nodded. “Have you ever been?”

“To KSA? Sure.”

Mena narrowed his eyes. “More family trips?”

“Something like that.”

Mena shook his head. “Fine, be mysterious. My joke is a little less funny now than I thought it would be this morning, but still funny enough. We can order, I’ll show you, and then we can eat here? They’ll keep our table.”

“Sure.” There weren’t as many people out after dark, but it was getting towards Christmas and the Christian customers in the area probably had holiday parties.

Mena stood, offering Alex a hand up. He took it and Mena dropped it again, probably in deference to his assumed American prudery. _Or he remembers you said you're taken._ He didn’t have enough time to worry about which it was, because Mena was striding off across the street, towards the construction site and the half-demolished building.

He disappeared around a corner of the tall white billboards blocking access to the site, and Alex followed him cautiously, careful of the darkness and the broken ground off the edge of the pavement. Mena was standing in an open doorway in the plywood wall, the dark greys of the construction site behind him, a ring of keys dangling from his fingers.

“This is one of my stepfather’s charity projects, I thought you’d like to see before we open it up next year.”

“What is it?” Alex asked, hanging back.

“Come on, Alex, didn’t anyone ever tell you surprise is the spice of life?”

“Did you forget I’ve recently had someone try to assassinate me?" Alex's tone was flat, less friendly. "What’s the surprise, Mena?”

Mena grumbled and leaned down, flipping some kind of switch that made a dozen massive, industrial scale floodlights clank on behind the plywood wall, making it look like full day had dawned just behind the barrier.

“Come on, Alex. You’ll love this.”

He backed into the yellow light, and Alex followed.

It was -- a bombed out building. It had been an elegant French Colonial building, maybe a boutique hotel, maybe a private home. There was an entire corner missing, painstakingly propped up in place so the building held its shape around the wound. There were bullet holes in the hand-moulded bricks. Parts of the floor above the ground floor were missing, all of the furniture and rugs and lighting and plumbing taken out, leaving just the skeleton, the carefully-crafted brick archways, the elegant columns, the curves and peak of the roof. It should have been -- horrible. All of the floodlights were staged pointing up, dramatically tilted to highlight both the gaps and the remaining architectural features. Haunted, like the Holiday Inn. But instead --

“It’s _beautiful_ ,” Alex whispered.

Mena flashed him a smile, looking up the path of one of the stage lights, through a hole in the floor above to the understory of the upper floors, the rafters still sturdy, straight and strong.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I know the city planners have been preserving the signs of the war, but this --” Alex paused, hand drifting just above where the blast radius of a hand grenade had knocked a circular wave of bricks askew, and where someone had carefully reinforced them in their new place. “This is art. This is the most anti-war public art I have ever seen in my life.”

“Yeah, that's it exactly.” Mena said. “The theory is, if we all have to life with the scars of war around us, all day, every day, it will remind us why we work for peace. Why we fight together to sustain that peace. So we cannot forget how horrible it was.” He took a breath. “In a few weeks, the construction walls will come down. Then people will be able to eat at that lovely little cafe, looking at this building, and in between croissants and tea, they can think about what it will take so this never happens again.”

“This is incredible. Thank you for showing it to me.”

“You’re welcome.” There was a pause. “Now, I mostly wanted to show this to you because your hotel room at the Family Resort looked like you brought a little bit of the civil war with you," he pinched his fingers to show how much and Alex ducked his head. "And don’t worry, we patched the bullet holes before renting it out again. But when you told me _why_ they'd come for you -- I wanted you to -- I don’t know,” he sighed, rubbing his head. “To see a place where violence has ended. And how it ended. Not by forgetting, not by killing, but by preserving what is left. By remembering how we got out from under it. And moving on, without forgetting.”

“I strike you as someone likely to forget?”

“No,” Mena said, letting his hand settle on the hand-shaped brick wall. “But as someone who might want to. And forgetting, I don’t think that works. I don’t think that helps. However you’re going to get out from under your father, it’s going to take remembering. Any man that would kill his child like a sniper, from a distance, by hiring people, he’s someone who has broken in some key way. I’m not some assassin mafia type. I was born after the war started, and I would have rather have been a casualty than a killer. But I’ve lived in the wake of violence most of my life. And you solve it by understanding how it started. And how it ended here.”

Alex looked around, the expensive stage lights, the broken walls, the shining mall, the looming Holiday Inn over it all: “How did the civil war end here?”

Mena gave a sad smile: “It took outside help. The UN came in, brokered a peace agreement. Sometimes, when things are so, so broken, you need someone outside of that system to show you a way out.” Mena checked his watch. “They should have our meal now -- are you ready to go?”

“One more minute?” Alex asked, and Mena nodded. Alex walked amongst the preserved modern ruin, hand on his heart, over the device in his chest, seeing this monument to violence and sectarian conflict and expansionism and, in the end, how bricks crafted by human hands could outlast generations of war. How lasting the things people put love into were.

\--

Over dinner, Alex and Mena’s conversation drifted more towards Mena’s research on international regulations of the diamond trade, and he gave Alex a quick, firm hug before sending him on his way. Alex got a room at the Phoenicia Inter-Continental, looking across a few blocks into the blank, fire-scarred eyes of the Beirut Holiday Inn.

Alex woke up early, ate the European-style continental breakfast, and headed back to his room. When his watch started to countdown, he was laying on his hotel room bed, backpack resting on his chest, comfortable, breathing even -- and slipping into the timestream almost didn’t hurt at all.

\--

Alex opened his eyes to a billion, trillion stars arcing up high overhead, the moon a thin sickle to the east. His back was on soft, even sand. As the colors of the timestream faded back into his chest, he drifted his hand down to the ground, feeling it between his fingers. It had nothing of the rough, gravely feeling of Roswell’s dirt. He looked over -- the sand was a satiny black. He sat up, scanning his eyes around him, catching on a patch of darker shadow against dark sand. A single nylon tent was about a dozen meters away, the kind an American would take car camping. Behind it rose a sharply peaked black volcano and all around him, highlighted in starshine, were dunes. No other living things in sight or sound but the gentle soughing of the wind across the salty crater lake he could smell in the volcano's caldera.

Alex stood, holding tight onto his bag, and approached the tent, eyes slowly adjusting to the early-evening and the little light the black sand reflected.

“Michael?” he called softly.

“Alex!” Came a wide-awake cry from inside and Alex’s heart jolted in his chest at the sound. The entire tent shook, probably Michael struggling his way out of his sleeping bag in the cool desert air. Alex chuckled, his steps lighter than they’d been in days as he strode to the tent flap door. “I'm coming -- just, wait a sec!” He heard Michael say, and he laughed, unable to stop himself at hearing the excitement in the other man’s voice. 

As Alex reached the tent, there was a sound of crinkling, a click of glass, the sound of water being poured. Then Michael was fumbling with the zipper -- Alex had time to wonder why he wasn’t using his powers -- then he stumbled out, shirtless with sweatpants barely hanging onto his strong hips, and Alex lost several orders of higher function.

“This is _so perfect_ ,” Michael said, something in his hands as he threw his bare arms around Alex’s shoulders, hugging him tight, body flush against his. “You're here! And I can’t believe I get to show you Libya. And I've got you all to myself, everyone else headed back and Iz is coming for me in the morning. Oh, this is so _perfect_.” The feeling of his skin against Alex’s clothed chest made Alex want to, immediately, get more skin contact. Alex was moving to kiss him when he pulled back, took himself a full step away, and presented Alex -- something.

Alex blinked, eyes still adjusting to the soft way the light reflected off the volcanically-dyed black sand. In one hand, Michael held a beaker filled with water, with a dozen small flowers stuck in it. In the other, a half-eaten bar of Cioccolato Venchi chocolates.

Alex turned a confused face to him, heartbeat still pounding drums against his breastbone.

“Flowers,” Michael said, shaking the beaker, “and chocolates!” He held up the golden wrapper. Then he looked up into the impossible sky, the Saharan quiet all around them, voice focused and clear: ”a starlit desert night, in a country you’ve never been to that I call home." He grinned at him, teasing: "Romantic enough?”

“Oh,” Alex said, eyes widening as he remembered the conversation in the loft in Pittsburgh. “Oh, Michael, this _is_ perfect. You’re perfect.”

Michael grinned, wiggling the flowers and chocolates. Alex took them out of his hands smelling the small, sharp scent of the blossoms.

He looked up through the spray of them to see Michael’s shining face, grinning at him, strong and healthy and free and --

Alex leaned down, gently laying the flowers and the chocolates in the cool sand.

He stood up, stepping closer, not touching, but just there, right there. The thing about night in the desert, is everything was in perfect greyscale. He knew Michael’s eyes were whiskeyshine, he knew his curls golden. He knew his skin a light brown, his lips a soft pink. But for the same reason Ansel Adams shot Yosemite in black and white, he loved Michael in grey. He could focus on the way his tongue moved across his lower lip, the way his chest moved as his breathing kicked up, his eyes roving Alex’s face, focusing on the shape of them, the movement, and not be distracted by the color. Alex took a deep breath, voice low and certain: “I think you are how I learned how love should feel, does feel, when it’s healthy and possible and real. I love you with everything that I am, flawed and broken and healing. I love you with all I’ve got, and everything I want for myself, all the ways I want to get better, it’s for me, but it comes from loving you. Wanting to be someone who could love you.”

Michael closed the gap between them, hands going to Alex’s face. “I’ve loved you my whole life. I’ve loved you as a protector, an ally, a friend. I’ve loved you as a life taker, a caregiver, a lover and a ghost. I’ve loved you in all the ways I know how and I want to learn new ones, just to love you even more. I love you, Alex.” Michael pressed their lips together, Alex melting into him, hands sliding up his waist, wrapping up and under his shoulders, breathing erratic, body _needing_ in a way he hadn’t known it could need.

“I,” he gasped against Michael’s mouth, losing the thread for a moment. He forced himself to finish the sentence, “I want you. I want -- I’ve got 12 minutes let, 13 if we keep most of our clothes on,”

“I mean, _I_ don’t have to keep my clothes on --”

“But you want to -- with me --”

“Alex, if I hadn’t wanted to be able to say ‘I love you’ so much I could barely breathe, I would have yanked you into that tent the instant I saw you. Come _on_ \--”

And Alex laughed as Michael tugged his hand, pulling him to the tent, fumbling his phone out of his pocket to set a timer. Michael was already in the tent, crawling to the head of his sleeping back, bottoms of his bare feet dusted with desert sand.

“My boots -- “

And Michael shook his head, rolling over and beckoning with his hands. “I’ll sweep it out later. C’mere,” and Alex crawled in after him, fitting into the space between Michael’s spread thighs.

He took a breath, looking down at him.

“Hey,” he said, leaning down, pressing a kiss to Michael’s lips, feeling him open up for him, strong thighs shifting to grip his hips, ankles tight behind his ass.

“Hey yourself,” Michael said, smiling up at him when he broke to breathe. “I’ve been thinking about that fantasy you had, from the loft.”

“Yeah?” Alex said, bending down to kiss Michael’s neck, enjoying the salt-sweet taste of him.

“I was thinking we could do that, with our hands, this time. There’s too much sand around for much else.”

“The one drawback of our first time being in my favorite country I’ve never been to, in the kind of climate I like best, alone in a beautiful place, with the man I love -- deserts have sand.”

Michael chuckled: “But that works for you? Hands?”

“It more than works for me, I’m fucking _delighted_ to get my hands on you.” 

Michael grinned, strong fingers roving up to Alex’s hips, slipping under his hoodie and t-shirt. “We better get this off of you then,” and then he slid his palms all the way up Alex’s side, Alex’s eyes drifting shut at the feeling of enclosure, possession, comfort. He ducked his head and raised his arms, letting Michael pull it off of him, carefully setting it to the side.

“I’m never going to get over the chance to see you like this,” Michael said, “Never.”

“Me either,” Alex said, tracing his fingertips down Michael’s sternum, to the place where his skin disappeared into his grey sweats.

The waistband had a tie right under his navel.

“Can I?”

Michael nodded, eyes bright. “I’m all yours.”

Alex bit his lip, careful of Michael’s cock, wanting the first time he touched it to be intentional. He undid the strings, pulling the fabric so the waistband was only covering Michael through the courtesy of gravity.

He paused, taking a breath, taking him in. 

“We don’t have to if you --” Michael started and Alex shook his head. 

“I _want_ ,” he said, knowing the conviction in his voice would come through. “I also just want to remember. Remember this. Remember you.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, and there was a softness in his voice, a shade Alex was learning to call love. “Me too.”

Alex passed a hand over Michael’s cock, feeling him arch up against the light pressure, chasing it, without shame, without worry about how he’d been seen or perceived. He drank in that feeling, wrapped it around himself, and claimed it for his own. Leaned down to kiss Michael, lips soft as he slipped his hand inside his pants, feeling the soft-hard feel of him against his palm. He closed his eyes, sensation too much to feel and see all at once.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Michael whispered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, that feels even better than I imagined.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, stroking down once before letting go. Michael made a hurt sound, like Alex not touching him was physically painful, but all Alex did was bring his hand to his lips, licking a wet stripe across it before reaching between them again, rubbing the slickness across Michael’s skin, easing the friction and starting a rhythm.

“Oh, oh wow,” Michael said. Alex opened his eyes, seeing his face was screwed up. “I’d thought 13 minutes wasn’t going to be enough, but uh, unless you want this to be a solo show, you’re gonna have to slow down.”

“Sure thing, love,” Alex said with a self-satisfied smirk, lightening his grip, teasing more than stroking. Michael made an inarticulate sound and then moved his hands between them, unbuttoning Alex’s pants and unzipping him. It was a lot -- Alex buried his face in Michael’s neck, breathing in the grounding, warming scent of him, as his quick hands reached into his briefs, gripped him; Alex heard a small sound, a soft one, come out of his mouth, and heard Michael hum with pleasure.

“That feel good?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, backs of their hands touching as they moved along each other’s cocks, falling into a shared, slow rhythm. “I love feeling your callouses, knowing you’ve worked hard for them; I love how sure you are, of my body, of yours. I love getting to feel you, feel so close to you.”

Michael let out a hard breath, ankles tugging Alex that impossible fraction closer, body arching up into him. His smell had changed, getting sharper, headier.

Their bodies fell into their own rhythm, their own language, smells and sounds, touch and taste, wanting and receiving, wanting and giving, wanting and getting.

Alex could feel it building inside of himself, the sense of something impossible under the surface, twisting and twining up his thighs, down his spine, around his hips: “You close?” He asked, and Michael groaned.

“Yeah, you?” He gripped Alex a little bit tighter, sweat easing the way now, and Alex bit back a groan, before letting it come out, fill the desert air around them and settle into the valleys of the lonely dunes.

Alex nodded, Michael’s fingers tight around him, both hands moving faster, breathing chaotic, and Michael turned his head, lips seeking, and Alex kissed him, his tongue warm and slick, swallowing his moans between them.

“I’ve got you,” Alex whispered, “I’ve got you,” and Michael’s body tensed, hips jacking and coming between them, the smell of him, the pressure of his thighs, the soft, fucked-out sounds he was making without even getting his pants all the way off as he was coming down brought Alex over with him with a soft sound, broken and mending, just right between them.

They lay together, sticky and breathing, for a long few moments before Michael flailed to the side and grabbed a spare t-shirt out of his backpack, wiping up the mess between them, careful of their now-softening cocks. 

When they were mostly dry, tucked back into their pants with Alex laying, soft and sated against his chest, Michael’s hand began to move up and down his back, tracing the vertebrae of his spine, out across his wingbones, then back again in slow, easy sweeps, Alex’s face still tucked into his shoulder. 

He heard him take a breath and say: “You said 13 mins, don’t you need longer? To look totally assassin-cool when you arrive?” He ran his hand through Alex’s hair, which he expected probably looked totally fucked.

“No, I,” and Alex would have blushed if his body had any control over blood flow at the moment. “I got them to agree to put up screens around the time chamber, so I don’t have to change in front of anyone anymore.”

“So you can arrive -- disheveled? Loved on? _Debauched?”_

Alex cracked a laugh into his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of how their chests touched as he breathed through the laughter: “As long as I can wear a hoodie around my waist to hide the evidence, yes, that was my actual motivation, thank you for guessing. Everyone else thinks I'm just trying to assert a bit of human dignity -- “

“Fair, you deserve it -- ”

“Thank you -- but yeah, it’s really so I can get those extra seconds with you.”

Michael grinned. “My sneaky, brilliant man.”

“You’re worth it.”

After another few moments, Alex remembered a question he’d wanted to ask earlier, before he lost higher brain function: “Where’d you get Italian chocolate in the middle of the Libyan desert?”

Michael’s breath was slowly ratcheting down. “One of the few benefits of being a former colony, Libya has great Italian imports. Those have been my favorite since I was little, since I first came here.” He traced his fingers through the sweat on Alex’s cheek, brushing slick fingers back into his hair. It should have been gross, but the touch and the slide of it was so sensual, so real, so intimate, it made Alex’s heart sing.

Michael kept going: “One of the benefits of being a third culture kid like us, is we get to decide what home tastes like.”

“‘Third culture kid’?”

“‘TCK’? Kids who are from one culture, grew-up in another, and make their own mashup of their own.” Michael pointed between the two of them and Alex smiled. Michael grinned: “I learned it from my students in Doha. A lot of them were ambassadors’ kids or their parents worked for multinationals. It can be, alienating, never fitting in where you’re supposed to be from.”

Alex stifled a chuckle, trying to keep his words inside.

Michael sighed, a smile playing around the edges of his mouth: “It’s fine, you can make the alien pun.”

“‘Alienating,’” Alex cracked, burning his forehead in Michael’s shoulder. “ _Alien-_ ating.”

“You get loopy after sex.” Michael said. “I love it.” He traced his fingers over Alex’s shoulders, enjoying the long, fine lines of them. “I love getting to know you, Alex.”

Alex’s case of the giggles had finally subsided. “You too, Michael. I love getting to know you too.”

His 1-minute-warning alarm went off, Michael poking at it until it stopped. He handed Alex his shirt, unzipping the tent by hand and crawling out to get the required 6 feet back, pulling his sweats up around his hips. Then he sat, cross-legged just in front of the tent door. Alex quickly pulled the embroidered cloth out of his backpack, laying it on the pillow when Michael would be sure to find it.

“Why didn’t you use your powers?” Alex asked, shrugging his way into the t-shirt and then the hoodie.

“Oh,” Michael paused, looking over at him over his shoulder, all bare lines and highlit darkness. “It’s the flowers. Their pollen suppresses my powers.”

“You’re out here -- alone -- and powerless?” Alex asked, yanking his pants up over his hips. “Michael --”

“It’s safe here, Alex. For me. It’s safe.”

Alex worked his jaw. He _knew_ Libya had been a safe, prosperous country for decades in this timestream. But it was so hard to forget the history he’d lived through; apparently, where Michael’s safety was concerned, Alex’s Time Awareness was a bit less convincing.

“Someone’s coming to pick you up in the morning?”

“Yeah, Alex,” Michael said fondly. “Isobel’s driving back. She drove Mom and Max there early so Mom could handle a diplomatic thing.”

“2013 was a big year for Libya,” Alex said, thinking of his current timeline and first major elections where women were leading two of the five major political parties. 

“Yeah.” Michael said, sitting back on the sand.

“So, why suppress your powers?”

His kind face turned grim. “There’s some people who are better off without their powers. It’s our main punishment, in our judicial system. And there’s some people,” he rubbed his hand over his face, “There’s some people for whom their powers are a burden. A weight. They just want to live without them, or spend parts of their lives without them. People who get overwhelmed by sensations, who have traumatic brain injuries that make their emotions painful or impossible to control. They choose to have weaker powers to make their lives better.”

“That makes sense,” Alex said, glancing down at his watch. 22 seconds.

“Hey, Michael?”

“Yeah?”

Alex surged forward, pressing his lips to the other man's: “I love you. I’ll see you later.”

Into the space between them, Michael's eyes were so, so bright as he said: “I love you too, Alex. Stay safe.”

Alex sat back: “I will.”

And then the time stream took him down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stayed at the Phoenicia Inter-Continental when I was in Beirut in 2013. I didn’t get a chance to go to the museum, but every other place in this arc is how I remember it. I was planning to go back there on the way home from Gaza and the West Bank, before Miss Rona came to town.


	31. the flood, yeah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're earning some more of our rating in this one.

Alex opened his eyes in the cold blue light of the time chamber. There were a dozen people there, people who’d lived in the refugee camps he’d helped fund and survived the war, able to return home to help rebuild Homs and Damascus and Palmyra. They _could_ have all been grad students at UNM for all their skinny jeans and hoodies revealed. 

Kyle’s voice came in loud and clear: “Captain Manes, are you uninjured?”

Alex nodded and Kyle called out: “Screens up everyone.”

And, like they’d practiced, all of the tab techs unfolded the screens, shielding Alex for a long moment. 

“Captain Manes, on your schedule.”

“Thanks, Dr Valenti,” Alex said, voice even. He looked down at himself -- he had black sand on his jeans and everything was a bit rumbled, but he wasn’t obviously post-coital. He shook his head, grinning.

He undressed, using the stool and crutches Kyle had left for him, body still tingling from Michael’s touch. He fit the clothes into the go box, took a breath, then called out: “Ready.”

The gas filled the chamber, white-grey clouds billowing out from the vents; then it faded back again. Alex breathed deeply, chasing out the always-there sense of enclosure. He opened up his change of civilian clothes -- a white Air Force t-shirt, black jeans and a fresh prosthetic -- by his count, he had about 5, all the same model and settings, all identical. Thinking back, he was sorting all of those missions when he’d returned to only crutches or to no stool to sit on to comfortably change into the bucket of ‘shitty things the Colonel and Flint did’ rather than ‘mission necessities.’ It wasn’t a nice category to have in his head, but being able to name and label those experiences made him feel a little more like he could guess what ‘normal’ and ‘good’ might look like.

“All decent.” He called, and the lab techs pulled the screens down, storing them on the back wall before heading back to their stations. The Syrian and Lebanese women, men, and nonbinary folks were talking amongst themselves. In Levantine Arabic, he called through the glass: “I am glad to see so many of you here. We have a reception in the other room where we celebrate this successful mission together.” There were smiles, curious looks, and then Flint’s voice over the microphone: “Thank you, Captain Manes.” 

His voice did not sound grateful.

Alex elected to ignore it. He checked his phone as the time chamber cycled open -- one email from Clara Power, one from the counselor he’d emailed, a text from Rosa inviting him to family dinner that night at Crashdown after closing at 11pm. He looked at the time: 8:32pm. He texted Rosa back:

> **Alex** : I’d love to. Kyle invited?  
>  **Rosa** : obvs. Tell him to bring back my copy of Mary Oliver’s _Dream Work_; he’s had it for 2 weeks and I want it back  
>  **Alex** : Ok?  
>  **Rosa** : thx

Alex looked over, seeing Kyle was deep in conversation with Flint about something. He texted him:

> **Alex** : I’m going to go to the reception for 15 mins, then we can do the post-mission check-up and head to family dinner? Also, Rosa wants her Mary Oliver book back.

He spent the time at the reception chatting with a young woman who’d run her refugee camp’s math classes and was trying to get her students into high school exchange programs in the US. They talked about being Third Culture Kids, her from the camps, him from how he’d grown-up. _Michael would love to meet her_ , he found himself thinking. He could still feel fine black desert sand in the spaces between his fingers.

He stepped into Kyle’s office to find him hunched over his computer.

“Everything ok?”

Kyle shook his head. “No. No, it’s not.” Then he closed his eyes, shutting the laptop screen. “But it will be. My friend’s brother, he’s -- he’s in a tough place. I want to help, but he doesn’t want the kind of help I can offer.” He smacked the palm down on his desk, Alex gritting his teeth. “I just hate watching people get hurt, you know?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “I hate that too. That’s how I felt, the first time I met -- I heard him getting hurt -- just, it sucks not knowing how to help. And it feels great when you can finally fix something.”

Kyle nodded, then he took a breath. “So, how’d the mission go?”

Alex gave him the highlights of his time in Lebanon as they did the physical exam, still thinking through what, if anything, he wanted to share about his time with Michael. He thought he’d been neutral-faced, circumspect, but when Kyle finished up, his friend chuckled, smiling at Alex:

“I’m glad the mission went so well; I haven’t seen you this happy.”

“Hmm?” Alex said, slipping off of the paper-covered exam table, bouncing a little on his heel.

“You haven’t stopped smiling since you got back.”

He followed Kyle out into the hallway, working his jaw. His cheeks did feel a little achy from the unexpected use. He decided he liked it.

\--

Family dinner at Crashdown wasn’t what Alex thought it would be -- he’d pictured everyone sitting down around a dining room table with a red table cloth, eating a big bowl of pasta or a whole roast chicken, with checkered napkins in their laps, maybe some candles? He wasn’t entirely sure.

Instead, it was Rosa chasing Liz with flour in her hair, Arturo under the frier trying to force it to finish emptying so he could scrub it out, and Kyle making blueberry waffles in the corner, trying to avoid getting pulled into the flour-fight.

Alex had, so far, not been given a task, so he had been haunting the counter, sitting where he’d last seen the blackhatted cowboy hunched over a coffee.

“So, Alex,” Michelle said, settling her hat on the counter. “How are things going with you?”

“Pretty good, thanks for asking.” He ran his thumb across his opposite palm, feeling the black sand collect beneath his nail.

“Anything special happening at work?” She held up her hand. “I know, I know you can’t give me details. But back when Jim was alive, he’d have days when he knew special visitors would be in town, would get a heads-up to provide a little bit of extra guidance to our local racists to stay out of the tourist bars.”

“I didn’t know that,” Alex said carefully, setting her hand on the counter.

Michelle nodded. “It wasn’t often. The folks who head to the base where Kyle works don’t usually come to downtown Roswell for their fun. From what I’ve heard, they usually connect directly through Albuquerque or Phoenix to the private airport on base, stay in the housing there, then fly right back out again. But sometimes we see folks who probably aren’t road tripping from California.”

Alex nodded, thinking. “Has Flint been keeping you in the loop?”

Michelle shook her head. “No. Your Dad used to drop a line occasionally, but he never trusted me like he trusted Jim.” She rolled her eyes. “Men. They’ll lie to their wives but think they don’t lie to each other.” She paused. “Flint’s the one running the base now?”

Alex looked to the side, wondering what Kyle had told her, rolling the sand between his fingertips. Technically, he should only have given her a cover story; but Alex didn’t know what he’d covered in it and silence was impossible to get wrong. Alex had never been close enough with someone to need to develop a convincing lie. He’d just let Rosa and Liz think he was working in the Air Force in some capacity; Michael and Kyle already knew.

“Ok,” Michelle said with a forced smile, “I won’t push. But if it means you get to spend less time in Jesse Manes’s presence, I am fucking glad for you, if you’ll excuse the expression.”

Alex’s breath hitched in his chest. “You know about him?”

He saw her turquoise ring glint as she moved her hand across the counter, like she was reaching for him; then she stopped, pressing her nails against her palm.

“Sara had stories. She wanted you back from him like she wanted air. She just could never get the courts to agree.”

“American courts giving native kids to white fathers is an old story.”

Michelle nodded. “Things are different now, there’s a better process to identify abusers, more people know the signs. But it’s not perfect. And the vast majority of violent men spend no time in jail.”

Alex glanced up, biting his lip: “I asked one of your deputies before, but -- there was a man who came here in the mornings. He stopped coming recently and Liz said he was in jail. But when I went by the station, he wasn’t there.”

“Can you describe him?”

“About my height, cowboy boots, black hat,” he thought about the feeling of his fingers on his hand, then wondered if that was not ok to think about now he and Michael were together. He wouldn’t flirt with the man now, but something under his heart was tugging at him, trying to remind him he needed to know where he’d gone.

“Can’t help you, Alex. I didn’t arrest anyone of that description in the past few weeks, but one of my deputies might have, or it might have been in a different county or --” and she shrugged. “Are you worried about him?”

Alex frowned, rubbing the thin skin between his fingers, feeling the roughness of the fine grains against the pad of his finger. “I don’t have a reason to be.”

Michelle’s lip quirked: “Kyle said you’d been getting some of yourself back. One of the things you might find is you have extra space to worry about things you can’t control. Try not to do that.”

“Mom!” Kyle’s voice was barely breaking through the tumult in the kitchen, something about Rosa’s lipstick, or possibly Liz’s hair tie, “You want chocolate chips?”

“No, mijo, thanks for asking!”

“Alex?”

“I’m good, thanks Kyle.”

“Ok, soup’s up in 2 minutes.”

He poked his head back into the kitchen and Alex turned a half smile to Michelle. She shook her head: “He’s a sweet boy.”

“He’s a good man. I don’t know where I’d be if --” and Alex blinked, looking down at his palms. He started again: “I know exactly where I would be if he hadn’t decided to try and help me. Nowhere good. I can’t ever express how grateful I am for his help and his friendship.”

“You tell him that?” She said, this time with a real smile.

“I did.”

“And what did he say?”

“That I should ‘help someone else who needs helping.’ Passing it on is the only way forward.”

“Good boy. That’s the kind of thing Sara would say. What he’s doing, with you, it’s like something Sara would do too. She was always trying to help where and when she could.” She thought for a moment. “There was a little boy, he would be about your age now. She only had him for a year, 1996 or 7?”

Alex tried to keep his entire face from lighting up, trying to convince his tingling fingers he was on a mission to infiltrate Al-Qaeda and it was very important they didn’t know what he was thinking.

“Yeah?” He prompted, trying to keep his voice even.

“You never met him? I mean, you had so little time with her.”

Alex nodded, searching Michelle’s face. But he didn’t see any duplicity there, no hint Kyle had shared Michael’s story with her.

“I saw him a few times that year, mostly organizing self-defense classes with Sara on the rez. I think he got adopted by a couple on the rez, but I didn’t see him after that.”

“It was kind of her to help care for him.”

“It was.” Michelle’s voice was considering, soft. “There are ways you can be more like her. Ways you can help too. Let me know when you have time. The kind of skills you seem to have -- even if it’s only just lifting boxes -- it feeds something inside of you, helping someone else.”

“I don’t know if I have time right now, but I’ll ask you when I do,” there was the sound of the waffle maker beeping and Alex slid to his feet: “I’m going to go see if Kyle needs help in the kitchen.”

Dinner was waffles, eaten in shifts. Arturo drafted Alex to help scrub the pans that the dishwasher hadn’t managed, and there was something -- about the scalding hot water, the steel wool, the simple shape of an understandable job done well, that was softly satisfying. 

Rosa flapped Arturo out of the kitchen with a hand towel, forcing him to go eat, taking his place drying.

“So, how’s your boy doing?”

He glanced over; her lipstick looked freshly applied and he wondered if she’d stolen Liz’s to get it that way.

“He’s good, I got to see him today.”

He could almost hear her eyebrows raise.

“Yeah? How’d it go?”

Alex ducked his head, applying possibly more strength but absolutely no soap to the castiron pan in the bottom of the sink. He hoped he could blame the hot water for his blush.

No dice: “Oooh, Alex, did you kiss him?”

Alex glanced through the window; but Arturo, Michelle, and Kyle were all sitting, listening to Liz talk about something with her hands flying and smile bright.

“We got to spend some quality time together.”

“ _Alejandro_ , did you get it?”

“ _What_? _”_

“Did you get it? Did you make a man happy? Did he make you happy?”

Alex was certain he was flushed in a way no amount of washing dishes could excuse. “He -- he always makes me happy. I hope I make him happy too.”

“And he’s doing good?”

Alex took a breath. “Yeah, he’s in medical school, should be graduating soon. He already got his PhD at 20 because he’s a freaking genius. But he’s happy.”

She was grinning as she whipped her towel around the platter in her hands. “Then that’s good. I’m happy for you. You deserve someone who makes you happy.” She leaned over, voice low.

“And Michelle wasn’t going to tell you because she’s old school and Kyle probably didn’t notice, but you have sand coming out of your hair. It’s all over your shoulders --”

Alex slapped his hand at his shoulder pulling it away to find a fine sparkling spread right across his palm.

“How did I -- I wasn’t even the one on my back!”

Rosa cracked up, wheezing over the dried stack of pans.

“Did,” she cackled, then tried again. “Did he put his hands in your hair? Maybe he had sand on him?”

Alex thought about shucking his hoodie, about wearing his boots into the tent; he honestly hadn’t been tracking where the sand was or wasn’t at the time, aside from avoiding getting anywhere too sensitive.

He focused again on the spatula in front of him.

Rosa chuckled, snatching it from his hands just as he finished rinsing it. “Sex in the desert is an old Roswell tradition; I’m gladd you’re catching up in your second adolescence.”

“My what?”

She took a second, voice coming out more measured than she had been a moment before. “Queer folks who come out later in life can go through the different stages that straight folks got to try out when they were in their teens -- silly dates and getting an idea of who you are, figuring out what kind of relationships you want in the world, figuring out what you like, all that stuff -- it’s just stuff you get to explore now rather than then because you weren’t able to be,” she gestured at him, “your whole entire self. Speaking of, I’m heading to Planet 7 tomorrow, you want in?” At his hesitation, she said, taking the last metal spoon from him. “Even boys who are taken can enjoy going dancing. Your boy won’t be jealous.”

“Sure,” he said, “my next work thing isn’t until day-after.”

“Perfecto.”

She glanced over at Liz’s continuing soliloquy and rolled her eyes: “I’m going to go and not smoke, drink, or do drugs upstairs -- if they ask, say I’m doing the rosary.”

“What are you actually doing?” Alex asked, concern creeping into his voice.

“I’m working on a painting for Papi’s birthday, a whole expanded family portrait thing.”

Alex smiled: “That sounds pretty cool.”

“You can come see -- if you say _nothing_ and touch _nothing_. I don’t need you messing with my creative process,” and she flipped her hair, with a bit of a grin but also an undercurrent of seriousness.

“I’d be honored,” Alex said, following her up the stairs. Her room had a vaulted ceiling, roof and walls covered with band posters, art, political posters, and generally colorful chaos.

As instructed, he carefully lowered himself to the ground, back against her box spring, and watched as she got out her acrylics. After a long moment, he opened his email, checking out the message from the therapist first:

> _Hi Captain Manes, I’m not currently accepting new clients. Thank you for reaching out._

He sighed and Rosa shot him a warning look. He held his hand up, swiping over to the still-open therapists search page. He felt a wave of, something, rising up under his skin -- _what if I am so obviously broken over email that she could tell and doesn’t want to bother with me?_ And he heard Michael’s voice: ‘I’ve loved you as a life taker, a caregiver, a lover and a ghost.” He took a hard breath, and scrolled to the next therapist, and wrote:

> _Good evening,_
> 
> _My name is Alex, and I’ve seen therapy help some of my friends who have similar childhoods to mine. I was wondering if we could schedule a call to see if we would be a good fit?_
> 
> _Best,_
> 
> _Alex Manes_

Next up was the reply from Undersecretary Power:

> _Hi Alex,_
> 
> _I’m glad our conversation helped. Thanks for what I think you did in Lebanon, it’s important work. I’m forwarding a request through from ECA for your agency, it might end-up on your mission list. I hope it does, I think you’d enjoy it._
> 
> _Let me know if you have any more thoughts about the other thing we talked about._
> 
> _Clara_

He wasn’t sure what to say yet, so he let it sit, watching Rosa fill her canvass until Kyle came up to let him know he was heading out.

Alex rode his bike back to the apartment, catching the lights just right so he got there before Kyle. He opened up the door with his key, thought about leaving it unlocked, but locked it anyway. Then he headed to his room, knowing he and Kyle could catch-up during their run in the morning.

He striped off his shirt as he walked into the bedroom, hearing the soft fall of sand on the linoleum of the livingroom. He glanced over to see the olive tree had another small leaf; he would water it tomorrow morning. He looked down at the sand under his feet: he would have to figure out how to clean it. He and Kyle had done chore days on a few Saturdays, but Kyle had always handled the vacuuming while Alex did the dishes and cleaned the counters. _A problem for tomorrow_.

He slid his door shut, finishing a nighttime routine he’d been trying out on Kyle’s suggestion. He was just finishing his stretches when Kyle came in; Kyle liked to go for walks sometimes after family dinners, to cool down or just get some space, Alex didn’t know. He knew Kyle had made the choice to live alone, so he figured he needed a certain amount of time to himself and didn’t take it personally.

“Night, Alex!” Kyle called, as Alex could hear his boots moving down the hallway.

“Night!” Alex called back, finishing stretching his quads.

He got into bed, feeling the mattress flex beneath him, noticing more about how it felt. He’d like to be with Michael on a bed again, someplace his knees could dig in on either side of his hips, where he could see his hair spread out on a pillow in the soft touch of daylight. He thought about Rosa’s assumption about their position and felt a thrill run through him -- he’d like to see Michael hovering over him, see his body in the daylight.

Alex finished getting under the covers, turning off the light. Kyle was taking a shower, the white noise and the sound of the water in the pipes filling the apartment. Alex bit his lip, and thought _Why not?_

He undid the drawstring of his pants, feeling the cotton loosen around his hips and settle back against the sheets. He traced his fingers across his chest, tracing the place Michael had left his handprint, down to his hips. He was hard, achingly so, body lighting up with each brush, each touch. He thought about Michael, his hands, his callouses, the soft, rough sounds he made. He gripped himself, tracing his fingers over himself, the veins, moving his skin over the flesh. He hadn’t gotten to see as much of Michael as he’d wanted, but he could fill in the blanks from touch, from how he’d filled his hand, from how hot he’d been.

He thought about Michael here -- no, not here, this was a good, safe, quiet place, but he wouldn’t want to bring a partner back to Kyle’s guest room. He went back to that house he’d imagined, with the bookcases full of books, the couch, the rugs. He imagined the bedroom, just the sheets -- soft, fresh under them. Michael over him, pressing in, kissing -- and that brought back a memory, one he didn’t like to think of. 

He pulled his hand off his dick, heart racing, and tried to get back to that good thought, that good dream. There it was; the flicker of Michael’s smile, the way his eyes roved over Alex’s face when he wanted to know something Alex wasn’t sure how to say. He’d slip down to his side, and they’d be facing each other. Michael would slip down the bed, hands _everywhere_ , his mouth on Alex’s hip, under his navel, the inside of his thigh. He’d press his lips against the head of his dick, hot and wet and warm and slick and -- Alex was so close, he just, he imagined Michael’s voice -- the shower turned off and he froze, wondering if he’d made a sound. He didn’t think he had. He took a breath, starting a steady rhythm again, remembering Michael’s joke about a solo show.

Now, that was something to think about. Michael, laid out and comfortable on white sheets, morning sunlight streaming in. Body relaxed, hand on himself, Alex -- Alex could be sitting behind him, Michael’s head in his lap, curls tickling the insides of his thighs, just, enjoying the view. He could watch him, watch him shudder and touch himself, watch him rub his hand across his chest, down to his cock, arching up into it, something slick on his palm, going slow, going fast, kissing Michael’s panting mouth, watching as he came -- and Alex was following him over, body writhing under the sheets, breathing hard, but sounds kept to himself. He’d mostly managed to keep the mess in his pants, so as soon as he could feel his muscles again, Alex wiggled them off his hips, tossing them with deadly accuracy towards the hamper in the closet, then flopping over onto his stomach to let sleep drag him down.

He woke early, before his alarm, reaching out his arm for Michael and -- nothing. The bed was -- it was too small? He opened his eyes into the quiet dark, looking around. He’d -- he’d been dreaming. About that big, comfortable bed. About that man. He’d -- he reached up to his pillow, that a moment before had been Michael’s shoulder, and was now just well-washed navy cotton.

And it hit him, in his chest, not like a boot, something more like a knife: he’d never gotten to sleep with him. He’d never gotten to hold him as he fell asleep, hear him snore, feel his body fall into the drowsy safety of sleep. And he would, he had to believe he would, that they would find each other when they caught up, when they were on the same page again. But for a long, desperate moment, he _wanted_. He _missed_ something he’d never had, something he’d never _knew_ he could want, could _need_. It felt like thirst in the desert, something to stop his blood being so sluggish, his mind so raw. His skin was still alive with feeling, his heart beginning to chase the feeling.

He closed his eyes. _Five more missions_ , he promised himself. _Five more missions_.

\--

Alex opened his eyes in a hotel garden in Abuja, in the middle of a thunderstorm so violent he couldn’t see more than a meter in front of his own eyes. He gasped, breathing-in what felt like a 50/50 mix of air and water. He did it again; then again, until he could see properly. He stood, perfectly still, as the light from the timestream faded into his chest, and tried to blink the pouring cold rain out of his eyes long enough to get his bearings. Once the device was quiet and safely dark over his heart, he took a step, then another; he was in the courtyard of the InterContinental Hotel -- he knew if he looked in through the sloping black glass of the lounge, he would see himself at 12 years old, eating a bread and cheese sandwich alone. His father had taken him to Nigeria’s capital for a week of meetings in 2002 with generals from several west African militaries, then left him to fend for himself in the hotel. Thankfully, there had been a little shop with travel guides he’d been able to quietly camp out in, so he’d spent the week reading.

He considered leaving some of his cash for the kid to get something a little more filling, but he was on a brutal clock with this mission. It would take him nearly 20 hours to get from Abuja to Chad’s capital, N'Djamena. Then he would have 4 hours left to convince Salma Geneviève to apply for a Fulbright to come to the United States.

He marched to the front desk, gave his name while trying to wipe the dripping water from his forehead, and was flooded with relief when the concierge immediately waved a driver over. _Time Analysts really did their prep-work right on this one_.

“Good afternoon, I’m Captain Darian, are you Mr Kolokoh?”

“Yes, I believe I am driving you to Chad today?” The man was tall, wearing a well-tailored black suit, with glasses in thick, stylish black frames and a watchful gaze.

Alex nodded, still trying to scrape enough water off his face he was not actively dripping. Mr Kolokoh looked like he was about to crack-up. After watched Alex struggle for another few moments, he ducked away, and came back with a stack of paper towels.

“I believe you are on a tight timeline, so I’ve taken the liberty of putting meals in the car. Perhaps you can dry off there?”

“You,” Alex said, sincerity in every word, “Are my hero. Thank you.”

Mr Kolokoh gave him a funny look and gestured for him to head down the massive, highly polished beige stone hallway that marked the entrance to the hotel. It was too early in the decade for there to be a security screening at the front of the hotel, but Alex caught the eyes of the armed guards. If he remembered right, this was the only hotel he’d ever stayed in with two bars and where all the toiletries were labeled in English and Arabic. He usually saw one, but not the other. But that was Abuja -- petro-hub of Nigeria, capital, a city placed in the dead center of the country on land no one tribe claimed too strongly, designed by Japanese architects for cars to drive. But people, real, messy life, was springing up in the middle of the pristine streets, crowding-out of the perfectly-square alleyways, finding its way to survival in the midst of carefully-organized order.

Just before he stepped out from under the hotel’s awning and into the waterfall sluicing off of it, Alex swore, whipping off his backpack and digging through it. When his hands closed on dry paper, he breathed a sigh of relief: his briefing had prepared him for the long drive, if not the weather, so he’d packed the complete set of Connie Willis’s Time Traveler books, along with the documents he needed for his mission. He sent a second round of silent thanks to the Time Analysts who’d designed his backpack to be perfectly waterproof. Underneath his books were paper copies of the Fulbright application and enough money to ensure DHL delivered it properly.

“Captain Darian?”

“My apologies Mr Kolokoh, I wanted to ensure I hadn’t gotten my visa and paperwork wet.”

“Ah.” He said. “You have both the Chadian and Cameroonian visas?”

“Of course.”

Mr Kolokoh looked dubious, but didn’t demand to see them. The Time Agency had pre-paid for the trip, so while it would be a hassle to turn back at the first border crossing, it wouldn’t ruin Mr Kolokoh’s day.

“Are you ready?”

Alex didn’t usually fit the bumbling American stereotype, but it seemed like he had firmly set himself in that role in Mr Kolokoh’s mind; _this will make for a fun road trip._

It was 16 hours to the border with Cameroon in Mr Kolokoh’s Land Cruiser, and the driver said 4 things:

“Captain, do you mind if I play the radio?”

“No, of course not, I would be glad to hear it.”

The rainstorm was petering out, the afternoon sun making the humid aid glow like it had been electrified. There were nearly no trees to block the views of the lowly rolling hills.

Then:

“Captain, we will be stopping for fuel, would you like anything?”

“I’d love to stretch my legs, thank you, Mr Kolokoh.”

The sun was beginning to set, the few trees on the savannah they’d been crossing casing long, inky shadows across the plains.

Then: 

“There is a military checkpoint, do not give them your passport.”

“Of course, Mr Kolokoh.”

The moon was high in the sky, the air desert-dry and clear.

Then:

“We are approaching the border, please have your visa and passport ready.”

“No problem, Mr Kolokoh.”

They drove across the border to Cameroon with the stars just beginning to fade; Alex had enjoyed the music as it shifted from Anglophone to Francophone, from Arabic to and back several times, Mr Kolokoh skillfully twisting through the stations to find the clearest signal. The music -- specifically, Salma Geneviève’s singing, was the entire reason he was here.

Razing Caulfield had led the Antarans to Libya, where they’d helped Libyans oust Qaddafi in the mid-90s before fading into the background. Back the 1970s and 1980s, Qaddafi had played imperialist in northern Chad, occupying and redrawing the maps of the top 10th of Libya’s southern neighbor. Qaddafi had had his own banana reasons: removing the homebase for French post-Colonial military forces on his border; spreading his own vision of a permanent revolution whose ideology sloshed between communism and pan-nationalism and federalism and theocracy with the only constant being his own personal supremacy; and, occasionally, some mealy-mouthed words about the well-being of the nearly 5 million -- now 10 million -- people who lived in a country twice the size of France. But the impact of his wars in Chad and the ongoing impact of French colonialism, ending with the Toyota War of 1987 where the US had armed the opposition, had been division, poverty, isolation, and Chad continually making the top 10 lists around the world for failed states.

Alex wasn’t here to fix that; or, in a small way, he was. Under his books and his cash, the Fulbright applications were still sitting, dry and crispy folded. The Fulbright was one of the program at the core of the whole concept of public diplomacy, of cultural exchange, in the US. This mission had come through the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), just like Clara Power had said it would. ECA oversaw the Fulbright program, selecting hundreds of Americans to travel abroad to study, and hundreds of people from other countries to come to America.

The Fulbright program’s selection criteria was unabashedly pro-American and pro-internationalism. They wanted to find the next leaders of countries all over the world and give them time in the United States to get to know the people, the ideas, and the systems that underlined the United States. Since the program started in 1946, 37 heads of state and hundreds more leaders had come through the program. It didn’t mean they liked the United States, didn’t mean they agreed with the current foreign policies of the country; but they did have a better chance of understanding why the US did what it does, and know how to speak a shared language. Likewise, nearly 100 members of Congress had done some kind of international exchange program run by the State Department before they were elected to office.

The problem was, it was always a guessing game. Over 370,000 people had gone through the program, and most were never elected to run their home countries or found their ways to power in other ways. And a lot of the people who _were_ elected still did nothing useful for the majority of the people living in their countries. Many Fulbrighters changed the world in other ways -- 60 were Nobel Prize winners, 87 had won Pulitzers. 

Because power -- power to understand and power to influence, power to change the world -- didn’t just come from politics. It mostly didn’t come from politics. Most people could name 10 times the number of musicians than they could politicians. And Clara Power knew this. Clara had seen how the Time Agency worked, had looked through her contacts, called around, and come back with a request: get Salma Geneviève to New York from 2002 - 2003. 

Get her into a Masters of Fine Arts program at NYU focused on music, get her into those rooms where her ability to speak French, English, all four western Sara languages, and Arabic would be seen as extraordinary rather than commonplace for someone living in a crossroads country. And most importantly, get her a recording contract.

Clara believed in the transformative power of music. How many people had masters-degree level understandings of Korean culture because of an early obsession with K-pop, or learned Japanese because of J-pop? How many people’s first exposure to Senegal came from Akon, had learned about Columbia from Shakira? 

Alex was here to kickstart C-pop, to bring the sounds, stories, languages, hip-hop aesthetics from Chad to the New York music scene and let it run wild. The Time Agency had set-up a funding stream for producing a set number of albums, running a series of concerts, other agents making the connections and building the infrastructure on different missions.

All he had to do was convince Salma Geneviève to take the chance.

And after she took the music world like a thunderstorm coming over the high grass, if she chose to come home, to run for office, to run her country? She would have the money and the connections she needed to do it _her_ way.

An hour after they left the border crossing from Nigeria into Camoon and without much change in scenery, the dawning sun shone down on them as they crossed the dusty and dry border into Chad. 

“Only 2 more hours.”

“Thank you, Mr Kolokoh.”

Alex checked his watch: that would give him 3 hours to meet Salma Geneviève at the café she ran with her sister, where they knew she would be at 8am when he arrived in downtown N’Djamena. 3 hours to introduce himself, make the case, answer her questions, and get someplace quiet to slip back into the time stream. _The first thing I do when I see Michael is I’m going to give him the biggest hug imaginable_. If waiting 2 days to see him had made Alex’s skin prickle this badly, he knew in a much more bone-deep way how much Michael would need touch when he saw him again.

N’Djamena was low-roofed and peaceful, the peculiar west and central African peace of busy streets full of people from a dozen languages and a dozen or more tribes, all going about their daily lives in a shared city. Children ran between mosques and churches, women tossed a blanket on the ground, emptied a basket of what they had to sell on the gently curving sidewalks. The sidewalks’ curb-cuts slow and sloping enough to allow people who had trouble walking ample room to get up and down them. Most of the buildings were houses or markets, since most people made their living in agriculture, though there were some fabric stalls, cooking utensil shops, and motorcycle repair garages spread in the easy chaos of a street with no zoning requirements.

Mr Kolokoh rolled down the window and the smell of petrol and dust, grazing animals and slowly disintegrating plastic bags, rubber tires and well-baked asphalt filled the car. 

“Here is your destination.”

Mr Kolokoh stayed in the truck, his carefully-pressed black suit safe from the careening clouds of dust kicked-up by the motorbikes sweeping by them.

“Thank you, Mr Kolokoh. I hope you have a safe drive back.”

“I intend to.”

And that seemed to be that. Alex stepped out of the truck as driver’s tweaked their horns at them for stopping in the middle of the street. He slung his backpack over his shoulder, and moved through the crowded sidewalk, women in bright green patterned dresses and men in long tunics and women in black with their hair under scarves and men with round caps and women in t-shirts and men in buttoned-up dress shirts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if the prior 157k words haven't clued you in, I am a huge international exchange stan. For more info on the impact of international exchange in our world, check out: https://eca.state.gov/impact/facts-and-figures


	32. I write you in spite of

Alex stepped into the café in N'Djamena, thick walls holding off the worst of the heat, the small windows letting in most of the light. It had a few tables with plastic red-checkered tablecloths and mis-matched but sturdy chairs; no one else was there this early in the day. There were lights fixed in the ceiling, but they were off. Whether it was a power cut, a choice, or something else, Alex didn’t know; but most of what he’d seen of this city could run without electricity and probably often did.

There was a woman who matched his briefing profile was standing behind a waist-high counter in the black, her hot-pink wrapped cotton dress carefully layered so the black-and-white patterns across it flowed around her body, watching a teapot on a petrol-powered portable stove. She looked to be about Michael’s age.

“Good morning,” Alex said in French.

“Good morning,” she replied with a smile. “How are you today?”

“I am well, how are you?”

“I am well.” He sat at one of the tables, pulling out his two copies of the Fulbright application. He’d insisted on getting an extra copy because the likelihood of being able to find a photocopies or a printer to print a new one was quite low, and he wanted her to have the chance to draft her answers at least once. She glanced over at him, then went to arrange a tray of pastries on the high counter. He arranged a pen beside the applications and waited in the busy quiet of the morning.

The teapot boiled, bubbling and hissing, and she put in two packets of Nescafé, stirred them both with a metal spoon, and brought ione over to him.

“Will you join me?” He said, setting the Central African Republic francs for the coffee on the table beside him.

She glanced over at him and nodded. 

“What are you working on?”

Alex glanced down, uncapping the pen.

“It’s a Fulbright application. It pays for the best and brightest students from their home countries to the US to study for a graduate degree.”

“But you’re an American, why would you need that?”

Alex wondered for a moment if she thought he was white; he was certainly the whitest person he’d seen in 21 hours, and probably the whitest person in this part of the arrondissement, unless the missionaries were out early.

“It’s not for me, Ms Geneviève.”

She frowned, leaning back: “I haven’t forgotten you. We don’t know each other.”

He nodded. “That’s true; I was sent by the embassy. We heard you were trying to take the baccalauréat, and we wanted to offer another path.” This was another purpose of the Fulbright -- poaching brilliant people from the post-colonial Francophone system and pulling them into the Anglophone one. Salma had showed her interest in being poached by becoming fluent in English, submitting her poetry to contests run by the US Embassy. “I was asked to come here because we think you will be a world class musician and want to help you apply to get your graduate degree at NYU in New York City.”

She blinked at him, tilting her head.

“Are you for real?”

Alex nodded, leaning down to pull the envelope of money for mailing costs out of his bag. 

“I am. I brought enough francs to cover the cost of shipping your copy of the application, the costs of travel to the interview, the costs of an interview suit, and the costs of the taxi to the airport. The US State Department will cover everything else.”

“What about my sister?”

Alex cocked his head, feeling his face grow curious.

“Your sister?”

“My sister. She’s the first female cartoonist in Chad. She’s much smarter than me. Can she apply too?”

Alex blinked, looking down at the two blank applications. 

He separated them, turning them around to face her.

“She can fill one out too. If she is as smart and hardworking as you, then you’ll both be just fine.”

“And I can come home? After uni, I can come home?”

Alex nodded. “Absolutely.”

“And my shop -- I am paying for my three cousins’ schooling with this café.”

“You’ll have the ability to do a student work-study for about 15-20 hours a week. The pay in the US is very high --”

She scoffed. “Everyone knows that. But what else -- I can only work 20 hours a week? What will I do with the rest of my time? Here, I’m studying full time, running this café, and writing a song every week right now -- I can work more than 20 hours a week.”

“The grant covers everything else, and they want you to be able to focus on your music studies.”

“My --” and her eyes softened a little, her smile lighting up. “I had thought I would need to study business.”

Alex looked around: “You know how to run a business. But along with the poetry you sent the embassy, you offered to come and sing the poems." 

"They rejected those poems."

"But the remembered the writer. One of the embassy staff, she heard you singing, remembered your name from the contest. Sent me here. That is what we’re hoping you would apply for, to help the world hear the music of Chad.”

“Oh,” she said softly, fingers delicate on the page. “Oh.” She took a breath. “I must talk to my sister.”

“Of course,” Alex said. “If you don’t mind, I can be here for about 2, two and a half more hours, to answer any questions you may have.”

“The whole morning, you are just here for me?”

He nodded. “Ms Geneviève, you are worth the investment.”

She frowned a little, pulling the applications to her chest. “May I have that pen?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

Alex stayed until he only had 5 minutes before being pulled into the timestream, watching as Salma’s café slowly filled-up with life, her sister came and went, and they worked on drafts of her applications in between her chatting and serving and caring for everyone who came in.

She was in the midst of a spirited argument in one of the Sara languages Alex didn’t recognize when he caught her eye and stood. She smiled at him over the head of the petty trader who was trying to sell her a single hardboiled egg and he nodded his goodbye. She shook her head, held up a hand, handed the petty trader a handful of francs, and raced to the back of the shop. She came running back, handing Alex a well-worn piece of paper.

She was breathless as she said: “This is my favorite poem.” He looked down to see there was Arabic text written on the paper. “I copied it by hand a hundred times when I was teaching myself to write. It’s by Darwish --”

“The Palestinian poet -- I speak Arabic,” Alex said. He read the poem, beginning to smile, recognizing it:

> _I miss my mother's bread  
> _ _and my mom's coffee  
> _ _and my mom's touch_
> 
> _Childhood grows in me  
> _ _day after passing day  
> _ _and I love my life because I live.  
> _ _If I die  
> _ _I would feel the shame of my mother's tears._
> 
> _Take me back -- if I ever return to you  
> _ _as a veil for your lashes,  
> _ _let your hands cover my bones with grass  
> _ _purify your perfect feet  
> _ _as they stand on holy land.  
> _ _Like a lock of hair  
> _ _pulled from the back of your dress  
> _ _I aspire to godhood,  
> _ _godhood that becomes me  
> _ _if I have touched deeply your heart._
> 
> _Wear me on your skin if I return,  
> _ _use me as fuel in your oven to help you cook,  
> _ _hang me on the clothesline on your roof  
> _ _because I can't keep my footing  
> _ _without you to pray for me to stand._
> 
> _I feel old  
> _ _I yearn for the stars of my childhood  
> _ _for how they bring me home to you,  
> _ _like young birds  
> _ _returning home_  
>  to your waiting nest.

“Are you sure I can keep this?” he asked, and she nodded. He carefully slipped it into the binding of his book she headed back to debating with the petty trader, who looked to be about 12.

Alex walked quickly behind the shop, to the back alley where strutting chickens competed for space with parked motorcycles and long, hanging lines of laundry. He tucked himself into a back corner, and thought about seeing Michael again, hearing his voice, seeing his smile.

When the timestream opened for him, he leaned back into it, letting himself fall softly into the blue light.

\--

Alex opened his eyes to a sea of black robes. He blinked, pulling himself off the sidewalk to standing, bodies jostling, crowded enough people were moving around him even as they couldn’t see him.

He saw an opening between the crowd and some folding chairs on green grass, and slid through it, when he heard:

“George Romero-Kupernitz!” and the people in the black robes screamed, clapping. Alex spun, looking around -- “Congratulations, Class of 2014!” -- a stage with a big screen with George Romero-Kupernitz’s name on it -- a crimson “Harvard Medical School” banner -- then the speaker called out from the podium: “Kelsey Rumsey!”

A graduation.

Alex was at Michael’s graduation. And if they were going alphabetically, he should be up soon. Alex speed-walked between the two lines of graduating medical students, as invisible to them and the hundreds of proud faces seated in the audience around them as he’d been to Mr Ridley or those skin-heads in Pittsburgh. He hadn’t known Michael had moved to Boston for school, but it made sense he’d spend his summers in Pittsburgh if he could, since it loved it there so much. And Alex had only seen him in the summers.

Before he could spiral into the same font of wanting, of missing seeing every part of Michael’s life, he saw a familiar flash of curls, up towards the front of the line. He quickened his step, watching as Michael bounced on his toes, keeping his eyes fixed on the 6 students ahead of him prepare to walk up the steps and receive their diplomas.

Alex walked up right beside him until their shoulders brushed and murmured: “Hey, Dr Truman.”

Michael whipped around, eyes wide. His hands flexed, like he wanted to grab Alex, hug him tight, but he held himself back, cautious of all of the watching eyes.

“ _Alex_ ,” he breathed, the woman behind him glancing over to see who he was talking to.

“Hey love,” Alex said, grinning ear-to-ear. “I can’t believe I get to see you graduate. I’m so, so, so proud of you.”

Michael’s eyes were wide, eyes a little misty, voice catching, still low enough to be hidden under the roar of the crowd for -- “Cecelia Shin!” 

“I -- I can’t believe you’re here. I’ve wanted -- I wanted --” he took a breath, “I would have given anything to have you be here, and here you are.”

He reached his hand down carefully beside him and Alex took it, squeezing back as tightly as Michael squeezed his fingers.

“I can go and sit with Marie and Jared, do you know where they --”

But Michael was shaking his head: “Come on the stage with me.”

Alex frowned. “Michael, this is your moment.”

“Only my family will be able to see you. And I want to share it with you.”

“Michael, I’ve never walked in a graduation, I don’t know what to do --”

“Yarden Sung!”

Michael’s smile was wobbly and perfect: “Hold my hand and walk with me. I'll show you how.”

Alex watched as Yarden accepted her diploma and then strode down the steps, nearly enveloped in the arms of her family as they screamed and jumped up-and-down with her at the bottom of the steps. He could see Marie and Jared, and an older woman who had to be Michael’s Mom. There was a flash of blond hair and a tall, dark-haired man standing beside her who must be Isobel and Max at 24.

He looked back at Michael, biting his lip. “If you want me to, I will.”

“I want you too,” Michael murmured, moving them forward in the line. Only 4 more to go.

“Then I’m yours,” Alex said. Michael gripped his hand, palm sweaty, quiet in the crowd as they watched Joshua Szekin, Peace Smith, and Timotheé Tan stride up to the stage.

“Dr Michael Truman!” And Michael and Alex were walking, feet holding the same pace, hands clasped tight between them, up the stairs. Michael took the diploma without letting go of Alex, smiling for the camera’s click, then down the steps. Marie and Jared’s eyes were wide but their smiles were massive as they sandwiched Alex between them and Michael, giving him cover to wrap his arms around Michael’s waist and hold him tight as the entire family crowded around, jostling and shouting, Isobel whooping at the top of her voice and Max crying.

Michael’s cheek was pushed into his neck, his hands wrapped around his entire family, and Alex could hear how hard he was breathing, close and quiet in his arms. The sound of another student’s name jarred them out of the moment, the volunteers gently easing them to the side for the next screaming family to embrace their new graduate.

Jared powered through the crowd, Michael keeping a grip on Alex’s hand, marching them a block away to the Laughing Monk Café, Isobel walking backwards to take pictures and Max stopping everyone to throw his arms around Michael anytime he could get through the happy crowd.

Someone had clearly made reservations, because Isobel walked them straight to a private room in the back with a massive “Dr Dr Michael, MD!” sign.

She shut the door and said: “So, Alex, you haven’t aged a month since I saw you last in 2001 -- what’s your skincare routine?”

Michael cut-in: “Ignore her --” and as she started to sputter, he held up Alex’s wrist, showing her his watch: 336 more seconds. “He’s only got 4 minutes left and I want him to meet Mom.”

“Ok, fine, keep your secrets,” Isobel muttered, pulling Max into the high-back blue-leather booth to sit with her.

“Mom, Jared, Marie -- this is Alex.”

Jared and Marie nodded, smiling, offering him their hands. Alex knew that, in the timeline they were in, in the timeline he was living in now, they would never have that confrontation at Caulfield, might never look at him with hate in their eyes. But it still unhitched something snarled in him to feel their welcome, see their grins, as Michael stood beside him with his arm slung around his waist.

“And, Alex,” he said, turning him towards Nora. “This is my Mom.”

She was old, having been an adult when she landed in 1947. She bore the signs of long confinement in the lines on her face, the careful way she held herself. But her back was straight, her eyes clear and bright, and her arms when she yanked his tentative handshake to pull him into a hug was just as strong as Michael’s.

She pulled away, saying in an even, carrying voice, hands on his shoulders: “I am so glad to meet the man who has chosen to do so much for our family, when it would have been so easy to look away.”

“Alex never looks away,” Michael said from behind him, and Alex flushed. Michael doubled-down: “Never.”

“I’m so,” Alex said, voice catching. “I’m so glad to meet you, ma’am. I know no amount of apologizing can undo the harm that was done by my family --”

Nora shook her head, once, harshly. “We are your family, Alex. Those who love you, who work to fix the world as you do, we are your family. Those who share your blood and use it for hurt, they have no claim on you. We,” and she looked around, Isobel and Max paying close attention now, “We claim you as our own, whether you are with my son or not. For saving our entire species on this planet, even if you think it was the least you could do, even if it was what you think any decent man could have done. You were the first decent man to do it in nearly 50 years, and for that, if you’ll have us, we would like to be your family.”

Alex’s throat was closed, eyes cloudy. He tried to say something, something diplomatic, something of the same weight and type, and he -- he blinked, his jaw shaking. He tried again, “Thank --” and his voice cracked, hard, and he held a hand up to his eyes. Nora let his shoulders go, and Michael gathered him up in his arms, tucking his face into the side of his neck, his crimson tassels tickling his nose.

After a few long breaths, Alex was able to get himself back under control, turning to face Nora, Michael’s arm across his shoulders now, grounding him, holding him close.

“Thank you, Nora. I really value the chance to be in your family. You are good people.”

Nora smiled and then jerked her head to the door. “Michael, you said Alex only has a few minutes left? Why don’t you two take a minute outside. We’ll be here.”

Alex’s eyes widened, his watch only showing 102 seconds left, but Michael grinned and grabbed his hand and hustled him past the kitchen to the red brick alleyway, empty but for a cast-iron patio table and a lot of cigarette butts.

Once they were in the open air, Michael turned to him, grinning. He was still wearing his graduation robes, and Alex crowded him up against the brick wall, knocking the mortar board to the floor, pressing his forehead to his. “I fucking missed you so much, Michael. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“Me too, Alex. I missed you so much.”

They were sharing the same air, Michael’s hands hooked-up under his arms, hanging on for dear life, mouth so, so close.

Alex met his eyes, his own still swimming from the declaration Nora had made. _We claim you_. He blinked and Michael closed the distance, touching their lips but gently, once, twice, each time a little harder, each time giving more, taking more, until Alex’s heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.

They couldn’t have much time left. He pulled back, Michael still keeping ahold of his shoulders, rummaging in his backpack, pulling free the slip of paper.

“I brought you something, it’s a famous poem, Mahmoud Darwish wrote it to his mother when he was in prison. It’s called ‘My mother’, you can find a translation online. It was copied by Salma Geneviève when she was learning to write --”

Michael’s eyes got wide and he took the worn-in paper with delicate fingers: “ _Wow_ , this was handwritten by _Genevieve_?”

“Salma Geneviève? Yeah, she’s from Chad --”

Michael frowned. “Everyone knows she’s from Chad, Isobel’s going to go freaking _nuts_ over this.”

“What?”

“Genevieve? The one from Chad? The singer?”

“Yes?”

“The one who just did her second album with Rihanna and who featured Beyonce on her new solo track? The one who just sang at the White House?”

“Uh,” Alex said, “I guess?”

“Wait, how do you not know about -- “ and then it dawned on Michael, a slow smile, closing his eyes to think. "Oh, now I can see it, the two time streams, the avulsion. I -- it was _you_. You made the change. This morning, when I got dressed for the ceremony, I had no idea there was a singer named Genevieve. And now, I can sing her songs as easily as ‘Royals’ or ‘Counting Stars.’” He leaned in, kissing Alex squarely on the mouth as his watch began to beep down his last 10 seconds. “You did that. Alex Manes, I love you.”

Alex couldn’t speak, the arms of the timestream floating out around him, but he knew -- he knew Michael could see it in his eyes.

_I love you too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note to my fellow copyright nerds: The original Darwish poem in Arabic should be in the public domain under Palestinian copyright laws. I did the English translation myself today to ensure that I could post it completely here. I release this translation into the public domain, so if you like it, please use it.


	33. wrestle with

"Do you mind if we do the check-up off-base?" Alex asked as soon as he was out of the time chamber, a group of the Time Analysts' teenagers bedecked in Genevieve t-shirts and singing C-pop lyrics flowing past him to the reception room where kisser crepes -- like Ethiopian injera -- were being served with fried rough balls and okra gumbo.

"No problem," Kyle said, "you have a place in mind?"

Alex checked his watch: 6am. "Would your gym work?"

"Sure, it's a little place, I've got it all to myself early in the mornings when you're on missions."

Alex nodded. That would work perfectly; the question he wanted to ask Kyle about his history with the Evanses would do go over someplace he was comfortable, rather than potentially poisoning the situation at the apartment. Alex figured, if Kyle freaked out, he could probably crash with Rosa for a few days. He said: "I'm going to go and check with Flint about something, then I'll meet you there?"

Kyle glanced over at where Flint was leaning against one of the walls, staring at the room: "Need backup?"

Alex gave him a half-smile but shook his head. "I've got this one."

Alex strode over, parting the dwindling seas of teenaged fangirls to get to his brother. Alex stood square in front of him until Flint turned his gaze to him. He watched as his brother's face filled with disdain, unmasked in a way it usually wasn't at work; Alex wondered how he ever could have mistaken it for care, now he knew how loving families looked at each other.

"I'm looking for an update on the Iranian mission. Who ordered the munitions switched?"

"Shit, Alex," Flint said, twisting his mouth, "you're like the third person to ask me about that today. It was the commander, ok? He got the quarter master to issue him a higher level of explosive than we'd requested."

"Who else has been asking?" Alex said, keeping his expression neutral and his voice even.

"Apparently," Flint said with a sneer, "some of those midshipmen who were there when you came back from your mission were really taken with your little," and he gestured to Alex's lower body, "show you put on for them. Some of them went back to their bases and complained, started asking questions about the mission. Some of their commanders passed those questions right back up the chain. So I looked into it -- we sent the right instructions. I saw the paperwork. I called the quarter master. He checked his predecessor's notes. 'Munitions Upgrade Requested by CO; accepted.' I got a copy. I shared all the documentation with the commanding officers and they told me they're initiating a review, pending UCMJ-approved proceedings," He glared. "Good enough?"

"Not for the men who died, or the men who were put in a position to take their lives because of the whim of one commander." Alex took a breath. "But thank you for letting me know."

Flint pushed himself away from the wall, Alex not giving ground, keeping his eyes of his hands. "I can't believe you are still so _soft-hearted_ , after everything you've seen. Where's all that bleeding heart nonsense for the servicemen who would have been killed if that mission hadn't been completed?"

"No one would have died, Flint! They were just jockeying for position. In the timeline I came from, no one died because of some speedboats doing tricks in the Strait of Hormuz. It was all just posturing."

"Are you questioning orders?"

Alex thought: _Yes, fucking yes_. He said: "I completed the mission, Flint. The requesting agency's goals were achieved. Did they have any complaints?" Flint's silence told him no. "And now we know who fucked with our mission, we can move on. Thanks again."

He stepped away before he could bait his brother any further.

"Alex, wait -- here's your next mission." 

Flint pulled a red folder off the top of the console next to him, handing it over.

"It's a dual request, State and DOD, plus the Russian Ambassador. Completion of it is part of the terms of the new START III treaty."

Alex raised his eyebrows, then kept a smile to himself.

"Thanks. See you day-after-tomorrow."

Then he made his escape, skipping the delicious-smelling food in favor of following Kyle to the exit.

\--

Kyle's gym was a little hole-in-the-wall in downtown Roswell with enough free-weights to make for a good workout, a nice punching bag, a few showers in the changing room, and that was it. Kyle nodded to the front desk attendant -- who Alex suspected was also the owner, janitor, and trainer -- and headed to the back. The owner headed out for a cup of coffee, locking up behind him.

Kyle started out stretching his arms, already in his workout gear: "I read your briefing, I figured you'd be knocked out after 24 hours and 1000 seconds of no sleep; unless you caught some shut-eye on the crossing?"

Alex shook his head, joining him in stretching his shoulders and chest, figuring his civies were good enough for the workout he wanted to do. "It wasn't really a situation where I could sleep comfortably, so I just stayed up reading. If I go to sleep when I arrive in the daytime, I get time-legged, and if I stay up with adrenaline, I won't be able to sleep tonight. But I've found if I workout, my body thinks it's morning, I can pull a full day, then go to sleep a little early, and start to catch-up."

Kyle clasped his hands behind his back, arching forward to stretch the long line of his back: "I wish they'd just give you consistent hours. This crazy sleep schedule isn't good for you." 

Kyle said, flopping on the ground and leaning all the way forward to grip the bottoms of his feet in a long pike. Alex followed him more delicately to the ground, breathing into the stretch for a count of six, then out again.

"Flint gave me my next mission."

"Yeah?"

"While Marcie's cousin was serenading you." Kyle rolled his eyes and Alex continued. "I'm going to Cairo in 2007 to relay new orders, redirecting US military aid away from Egypt's military and to their educational system, turning $1.3 billion dollars a year into laptops, chemistry labs, 4H clubs, libraries, special education programs, robotics and programming and poetry and athletics classes."

He could hear the frown in Kyle voice. "We give Egypt $1.3 _billion_ dollars a year in military aid?"

"It's what we pay to keep the Suez Canal open, in theory, and it was supposed to ensure a professional military, one that wouldn't attempt a coup." 

Kyle snorted: "See how well that worked out."

Alex moved his legs into a butterfly, pressing his elbows down tight on his knees. "That's the value of the Time Agency for policy makers. If someone lies to us, tells our generals they intend to 'salute the first civilian-elected president of Egypt and then go back to their barracks' _and then they don't_ , we can go back, try again, see if our newfound perspective changes what we do. The current feeling at DOD and State is Egypt's civil society needed more investment, that that would have allowed the Arab Spring to flourish there the way it did in Tunisia. More democracies in the Middle East make for good foreign policy for the US, and as an extra benefit, it's actually what the people who live there want."

"Good added benefit," Kyle said, cynicism deep in his voice. "So where does Russia fit in?"

"It's a balance of powers thing. We remove our military aid to Egypt, and in exchange --" Alex paused for dramatic effect, and Kyle leaned forward a little, "They keep their noses out of Syria."

Kyle's eyes got wide. "Oh, wow," he said, blinking. "Wow -- do they think --"

Alex tucked a grin into his cheek. "This mission, plus some others other folks at the Time Agency are on this week, we think Syria will get to hold their first free and fair elections since -- since ever."

"And Russia agreed to it?"

"As part of nuclear stockpile reductions on both sides and the Senate finally ratifying START III -- we'll have a lot more fuel for nuclear power plants and within 10 years, both countries with will down to 100 nuclear warheads each."

"Down from what? Who needs more than _one_ nuclear bomb?"

Alex blinked, working his jaw. "We've currently got 6,185 nuclear warheads, with 1,600 of those deployed, about half of the remainder in the stockpile, and about half waiting to be disassembled."

"Holy _fuck_ , Alex."

"That's down from 31,225 total nuclear warheads in 1967."

"Thirty one _thousand_ \--!" Kyle took a breath, moving his voice back down from falsetto. "And Russia?"

"They produced about a total of 55,000; we don't really know where they're at in total production, stockpile, or deployment; they say it's 6,500 with 1600 deployed, but it's hard to verify. A lot of their arsenal was in the Caucuses, so there's a certain amount of," and Alex waved his hand, "haziness, intentional haziness, about where they're at. But with this treaty, they would allow in International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to every location, every 3 months, until they -- and we -- were confirmed down to 100."

There was a long pause; Kyle's voice came out kind of funny. "You know, Alex, sometimes I wish I didn't know as much about US foreign policy."

Alex lay back, turning his head from side to said to stretch-out his neck. "Yeah, I get that." He looked up at the cinderblock of the high ceiling. "But the thing is, it's being done in our name. All of it. So whether we know about it or not, care about it, or not, people are living and dying by the policies being created in our names. So, knowing about them seems like the bottom rung of the ladder of engagement."

"The what?"

"Oh," Alex said, "It's a model -- one we use for identifying where a target is and how best to influence them. Like MICE?"

"MICE?"

"Ways to influence people -- money, ideology, compromise or coercion, ego. That's a very Cold War one. There's a more modern version, RASCLS: reciprocation, authority, scarcity, commitment and consistency, liking, and social proof. Which of those we use depends on the target. It's like -- like a marketing funnel? Like, let's say, you have a goal: get more people in America to advocate for reducing the likelihood of nuclear war."

"Solid goal."

"So, then," Alex said, swinging himself to standing and going to set-up the bench-press as Kyle finished stretching his thighs, "You've already decided your theory of change, right? You think the US is more likely not to engage in nuclear war if a lot of people advocate against it. That wouldn't work in a non-democracy; 99% of people can agree on something in Syria today and it will mean nothing to Bashir Al-Assad; 100% can agree on something and it will mean less than nothing to Abdel Al-Sisi. But you can't just walk up to someone and be like: 'Hey! Can you call your Congressperson about not having a nuclear war in our lifetimes?"

"Why not?"

"Because most people will think you're a nutcase and they won't do it. So you start with something small, like telling them what I told you. Just a conversation, just some information, no action item. Then, a bit later, you ask them to do something small, like sign-up for a mailing list from an anti-nuclear proliferation nonprofit. Then, that nonprofit asks them to do something small, like sign a petition. Then something bigger, around a particular action, like calling a member of congress. Then something bigger, like going to a Hill lobby day, or getting involved in a campaign for a House seat and getting non-proliferation onto the list of priorities of that candidate. Or running for office yourself. Then you do that, thousands and thousands of times, and you get to change the world."

"Sounds exhausting."

Alex lay back, starting a warm-up set as Kyle stood to stretch-out his Achilles tendons against the cinderblock wall. His voice was quiet: "It can be in isolation, but I know I'm not doing it alone. When I recruit someone, sometimes they'd had years put into getting them to the step on the ladder of engagement where I'm meeting them. Time Agency resources go into that, personal motivation goes into that, luck goes into that. But the world tends towards inertia, and if you don't want things to be the way they've always been, then you need to use your energy to fix them. Things only change because people change them." He looked up at Kyle, who'd come to stand behind him to spot while he finished his warm-up set with the bar.

"That's what you did, for me. Are doing. Putting energy in, fixing a fucked-up situation that would have ended up with me dead or like my father without some kind of outside intervention. I don't know which one would be worse and I going to keep thanking you for your help no matter how many times you tell me not to."

Kyle flushed, and Alex stood to go and set-up his weights. He spoke to the weights, not sure he could make eye contact while saying this. "Which makes my next question really hard."

Kyle cocked his head. "What's up?"

Alex slowly turned around to ask: "Kyle," he said, keeping his voice careful. "Without telling me anything about Michael, how long have you known Isobel and Max Evans?"

Kyle's eyes flared with panic for a second, and he took a step back; Alex wondered if he looked threatening in that moment, or Kyle just needed a moment to breathe.

"We grew-up together, Liz and Rosa and the Evanses."

"And when did you find out Michael was related to them? That they're Antaran?"

"When you did, Alex. In that storage unit."

Alex nodded, eyes neutral, careful. "And when were you going to tell me the Sheriff's Deputy who haunts Crashdown is Max Evans?"

Kyle gave a long sigh, something like relief moving over his face. "As soon as you found out for yourself. I asked you, remember, if you wanted to know things about your future? And you said no?"

Alex nodded, frown heavy on his face, thinking of the woman who'd asked about his skincare regimen. "Where's Isobel? I haven't seen her around -- is she ok?"

"She's in Libya -- she moved there in 2016. After I learned about their heritage, I checked-in with her and figured out it was so she could apprentice with Nora, not just for the charity work she always said she was doing there."

Alex thought about that, thinking through every interaction, weighing them, seeing if he could feel a lie behind them. His voice was soft when he said: "I still don't want to know about Michael's future. I can be patient. Michael will have waited 20 years for him by the time we synch up again; I can wait four more missions. It's just," Alex scrubbed his hands over his face. "A few weeks ago, when I had the marks from him, after he healed me, after Sierra Leone, I could have sworn I --" he remembered that hurt, the feeling of the kick that had yanked him from sleep, sure there was a killer in his room and finding it empty. Then Michael covering the feeling, projecting good feelings to him, hiding what was wrong. He took a breath. "I trust Michael. I trust him. He'd find a way to let me know he needed me if he did."

"I know he would." Kyle said, voice heavy. 

_He's met Michael. He's known about him, this whole time._

Alex felt himself swirling, tried to stop himself, but he had to ask: "The Michael you know, he knows about all of our time together? Even the ones I haven't gone on let? Like in Doha?"

Kyle closed his eyes, nodding. "It's -- it's like you said about avulsions, right? So, it's an avulsion _every time_ you move through time. _Every time._ Even when you return to what you think of as your timeline."

Alex nodded slowly, sitting down on the bench.

"So, after that first time, when Michael was 8, when you hopped back, you hopped to the timeline where Michael had already experienced every visit you would have. I think what he did, when he was 15, making his device, that's why he can remember the other timelines, the ones where he didn't meet you --"

"He's time aware, like me."

Kyle nodded, working his jaw: "For what it's worth, I hated lying to you. You've had enough people around you lie to you, keep you in the dark about things the intimately affect you, say it's for your own good."

Alex cocked his head, beginning to stretch his wrists out: "When did you lie?"

Kyle closed his eyes, clenching his fists: "Every time you shared a story about Michael's history I knew part of from Isobel or Max, when you didn't know who he was in Doha --"

"You were doing that because I asked you to. I didn't _know_ I'd asked you to, but you were trying to honor my intentions."

"Alex, you've been hiding it, but you've been really worried about where Michael is in 2018. You've been so close and I've never --"

Alex held up his hand. "Michael agrees? He wants us to explain this choice, to wait it out, to me himself?" He had to trust, _had_ to trust, that Michael in 2018, with a full knowledge of their relationship, knew what he was doing.

Kyle nodded: "I've tried to talk him out of it about once every-other-day since you and I went to the Wild Pony, but so far, he's just as stubborn about this as you are about keeping working at the Time Agency."

"Did you lie to me about anything else? Anything that doesn't have to do with letting me experience my history with Michael in the same order he did?"

"No, but Alex --"

Alex shrugged, getting ready to lay back on the bench: "Then it's just a lie of omission. It's ok. Don't feel bad about it."

"No!" And Kyle's raised voice and Alex spun back around, heart pounding on the inside of his breastbone.

" _No_ , Alex," Kyle repeated, distress thick in his voice. "You just learned the person who having been living with for over a month has been concealing something major, _lying to you by omission about the family of the man you love._ You're allowed to be mad; you're allowed to hate me." He took a breath. "I'm not gonna kick you out. If you don't want to share the apartment, I'll go crash with Rosa or Liz for a few days. It's -- it's _awful_ , Alex. Your friends have been _lying_ to you. I'm so _sorry_."

Alex shook his head, his stomach twisting, trying to force a smile on his face: "No, it's ok, Kyle, you don't have to be sorry --"

"I'm not Flint, Alex!" Alex jumped, biting his lip and leaning back away from Kyle. Kyle took a breath, seeming to force his voice lower: "I'm not _Flint_. I'm not the _Colonel_. I'm not going to -- I'm not going to hit you, to punish you, for having negative emotions. For voicing them, for acting on them. I'm _not_ going to hurt you for being mad at me, particularly when I'm the one who wronged you." His voice was shaking. "I don't know how else to say it. I don't want you to realize in 3 weeks how fucking horrible this is. And if," he paused. "If you need time to process, I'm not trying to rush you. And I'm not trying to tell you how to feel. But I just -- this is a big deal, Alex. A breach of trust. And I want you to know that I know that, that I feel fucking awful about it, and that I want to work to make it right."

Alex felt a fluttering in his chest, his heart going too, too fast. "I --" he lost steam for a second. He tried again. "I --" He blinked hard, wishing harder than he'd ever wished for anything in his entire life that Michael was there, that he could turn his face into the side of his neck the way he had in that backroom in Boston. He rubbed his eye: "I think I'm just really tired, Kyle. I -- I don't know what I'm feeling."

"And that's ok. But you don't have to pretend to only have the most socially acceptable, least objectionable feelings. You can be mad at me and we'll still be friends."

Alex nodded: "Ok," he said, taking a step back, feeling his prosthetic sink into the workout mat. "Ok. I'll think about it."

He swallowed. "Can we table talking about this more, until I get a chance to think it through? Probably not until after my next mission."

"Sure, Alex," Kyle said, face pained, voice soft. "It's your timeline."

Alex took a breath, trying to a lighter tone: "So, next time I see Max, I'm going to introduce myself properly. We were hugging and crying yesterday, but the last time we talked, his voice hadn't dropped."

"That's a good idea, Alex. He can connect you to Isobel."

"I'll have to tell him not to tell me about Michael."

Kyle frowned, hands bunching in his shirt as he stretched it up to wipe his face. "You can ask me and I'll tell you; but I don't think it's what either of you want."

Alex blinked his eyes once, hard, at the thought that Kyle knew more of what Michael wanted in this time, in this place, than Alex did. _Where_ he was, _what_ he was doing, _why_ he was waiting. He was, for a brief moment, overwhelmingly _frustrated_. The idea he had to wait, even just a little over a week, even just that, was infuriating.

"I think I'm done working out. I'm going to head to the apartment."

"That makes sense -- and like I said, if you need space, just text me."

Alex stood, feeling his prosthetic uneasy on the soft mats on the floor. "Hey, Kyle," he said, thinking of something. "Last question: how much did medical school cost?"

"Well, I'll be my Mom's age before I finish paying off my tuition, if that helps."

"Do you mind sharing a number?"

"About $160,000."

"That's what I thought." Alex worked his jaw, before turning towards the door and his bike.

\--

Alex headed back to the apartment; he had to review his briefing, try to figure out what he was feeling about Kyle knowing about Michael this whole time, water the olive tree. He decided he wasn't going to worry about the thing with Kyle until he'd had something to eat and some more sleep; instead, he was finally get some time to himself to roll around in the memory of holding Michael in his arms against that brick wall, of hearing Nora welcome him to their family in language more precise, more clear, than any he'd ever heard from his own flesh and blood.

As he was working his way up the steps, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out, not recognizing the number.

"Hello?"

"Is this Captain Alex Manes?" The voice was an older woman, voice low and sure.

"It is, how can I help you?"

"This is Killashandra Greyjoy, you sent me an email about an appointment?

"Oh -- I'm sorry, I had forgotten I'd given you this number." Alex fumbled his key out of his pants' pocket and into the handle. He tucked his phone against his shoulder.

"Is now a good time to talk?" She asked, voice even. 

"It is," Alex said, going to the sink to get a glass of water to fill for the olive -- it had the same 3 leaves, but as he knelt to water it had grown another centimeter above the soil.

"I'm glad. So, Captain Manes -- can you tell me a little more about what you were hoping to get out of therapy?"

Alex frowned a little, carefully pouring the water in a circle around the base of the stem.

He took a breath: "So, I have several friends who've had -- the same kinds of childhood as I did. Rough childhoods. Difficult parents. V-violence. And they said, they said that talking helped. Helped them be less angry, helped them be better in relationships." He swallowed. "I have -- someone I care about. I don't want to bring my, my background, into that relationship. I don't want to repeat the only kind of love I know."

He felt like he was peeling a potato and he was the potato, talking about this.

"Well, Captain Manes, I have experience working with adult survivors of child abuse --"

"Can you -- I go by Alex. Outside of work."

"Of course. Alex. As I was saying, I've worked with people with experiences like yours, including active duty service members. I also have a background in couple's therapy, if that's something you and the person you care for end up wanting to explore."

"I don't think if -- they -- would be alright with that. They're not a fucked up as I am." And Alex winced, not sure he was supposed to swear in front of a therapist.

Her voice was neutral and she didn't sound offened: "Well, it's an option. And I should note, I have a number of queer clients and provide an inclusive practice."

Alex blinked, fingers tingling as he knelt beside the olive tree, the warm morning sunlight shining that little bit brighter between him and the dark leaves. "That's -- that's good to know. Thank you."

"Of course. My wife wouldn't have it any other way. I have room in my practice for a weekly hour-long appointment. You saw the schedule of rates on my profile?"

"I did -- I was planning to pay out of pocket. My insurance is a little confusing."

"That is fine. I can emailed you a credit card pre-authorization form as well as a more formal intake form." There was a pause. "Do you have a regular time that would work for you?"

Alex closed his eyes, fingers gentle on the dark soil. "I wish I did -- my work schedule is highly variable."

"That's fine, we can schedule the next appointments as we go. I have an opening day-after-tomorrow, will that work for you?"

Alex remembered the timeline for the mission: "I should be off of work by noon?"

"Perfect, let's plan on 2pm. I'll include my office address in the email. I look forward to speaking with you, Alex."

"You too, Killashandra."

She hung-up the phone and Alex pivoted, pressing his entire face to the cool laminate of Kyle's floor.

 _That wasn't so bad,_ he tried to tell himself. _It'll be fine._

But he could hear his father's voice, screaming about talking out of school about their family, about _embarrassing_ him; he could hear Flint, calling him a pussy. The words were getting stronger, fuller, _louder_ \--

Alex yanked out his phone again, dialing Rosa's number from his contacts.

"Alejandro, what's up?"

"Can I come help clear tumbleweeds today?"

"I'm sorry, Alex, I have something else today." There was a pause, during which the yawning maw of his own brain threatened to yank Alex down into it. "But he wouldn't mind you coming by; he's cool that way. Just don't go in the house, ok? He's pretty private."

Relief ran like a river down Alex's back, but he forced himself to say: "Are you sure your friend is ok with it?"

"Sure," Rosa said, "it's free labor. Just pile-up the tumbleweeds in the truck bed and secure them with the tarp when you're done," there was a pause. "You ok? You sound kind of -- thready."

Alex thought about lying; then he thought _fuck it:_ "I just did the intake call with a possible therapist; I think I need to go and have some feelings violently until I can breathe again."

"Not the best coping mechanism, but not the worst either. Stay safe out there, and if you need me, call me. I can miss this meeting if I need to."

Alex took a breath, already heading to the door. "I can manage it ok, but thanks, Rosa."

"We're still on for _Doctor Who_ tomorrow night, right? 'Silence in the Library'?"

"Yeah. I'll see you then."

The drive to Rosa's friend's house was quiet, the long, flat horizon of mesquite and sage brush pulling his mind out, unfurling his wings, letting his brain get a little bit of space to breathe. He figured the falling-down-a-tunnel feeling was probably from not sleeping, the conversation with Kyle, and having to talk about his feelings with the new therapist. He was hoping some good, old-fashioned manual labor would help him pull back out of it.

The house had the same long, curving driveway as he remembered, the same palo verde and sage hedge. He found the mid-century blue truck, pulled out the tarp, and started loading tumbleweeds into it. He was sweating in a few minutes, gasping in half an hour.

The fleeting attacks from his father and brother, the twisted faces, the words, the blows -- came lighter, out here in the desert sun. They faded away faster, than when he was still stewing in the apartment. He gave it an hour, and by the end of it, he was able to think about the feeling of Michael's hand in his, the taste of him, the touching sound of all of his family cheering their hearts out for him.

He still didn't get how Michael had paid for medical school, how he could afford to fly to Libya once a year on a grad student's slim earnings. He wondered if it wasn't his business; but then, in Schenley Park, Michael had talked about a house. He was clearly planning for a future together, and finances were part of that.

He gave it another 30 minutes, then went to his bike and pulled out his water bottle and mission briefing, taking it with him to the little garden in the back. It was easier to breathe in here, the adobe walls bringing the night's quiet into the yard, radiating coolness.

He sat at the little wooden table beside the arroyito, eyes fixing on the red back door. He looked away; he might be a spy by training, but he wasn't a snoop. Rosa had set a boundary and he was going to respect it.

There was a big window, shades drawn tightly, on the other side of the door. _Master bedroom? Living room?_ Alex wasn't sure the layout on the inside, but either were possible.

Once he finished his bottle of water, he stood, stretching out, the exhaustion from the day before creeping in, making him slow. It was only noon.

He opened the mission briefing on the table, watching the way the thin, sun-wary leaves of the palo verde flickered and flared the light across it, and started reading.

\--

There was another man, this one in all black, standing beside the time chamber when Alex came in 15 minutes before his time slot. His briefing had told him it was Sergei Pachenko, GRU officer and Time Agent. Alex had done duel missions before, but rarely with a non-NATO country agent. His first year as an agent had been dedicating to unwinding the war in Afghanistan, building-up to chasing Usama bin Ladin out of Afghanistan and into Turkmenistan in the operation that had cost him his leg. He would have to check his travel history to see if he'd ever shared a docket with a GRU or FSB agent before. The lab techs were hustling around, getting the final calculations made, checking the last details, so Alex walked over to him.

"Morning," he said in Russian with a Muscovite accent.

Sergei smiled with crooked teeth, answering in English decorated with a broad Texas accent: "Good morning to you too, Captain Manes."

Alex held his hand out to shake. 

Sergei took it, switching back to Russian: "So I hear I'm heading out after you, but I'll get back before you, is that right?"

"It is," Alex said, smile carefully guarded.

"I don't get it -- how are you all extending the missions past 24 hours? I thought that was a hard lock, like us being only able to travel up our own time 'ziplines,'" he said the word with a smile. Alex wondered if Sergei had ever ridden on a zipline, or if the Time Agency included it in all of their training materials to countries who'd received their own time chambers through carefully negotiated treaties, regardless of whether or not the foreign nationals involved had ever seen a zipline.

"We're not -- I've just been coming back late. Missions clock works the same way."

Sergei lowered his voice conspiratorially: "So where are you, for those 1000 seconds, Captain Manes?"

Alex shook his head with a smile very few people would know wasn't genuine; he figured that was personal progress. Before he'd met Michael, there hadn't been a person alive since his mother passed who'd been able to tell his fake smiles from his real ones. "Your guess is as good as mine. It won't affect you, none of the other Time Agents have been coming back late."

"So what's so special about you?" Sergei's voice was little harsher here, and Alex liked it better; spy-on-spy was always less disconcerting when people stopped pretending to be best buddies. 

"I make a great maqluba," Alex said, "or I will, once I stop taking it off the burner too quickly."

Sergei raised a thick, dark eyebrow before laughing and clapping Alex on the shoulder. "I'd love to try it sometime. Do you have an email, or do they keep you all too neutered to talk to the outside world?""I didn't know GRU agents could read, or I would have offered it already," Alex said, knowing his eyes were smiling, holding out his hand for the other man's phone. Sergei snickered again and handed it over.

"Like your Marines, all we eat all day and all night are crayons." Alex put his personal email into the phone, along with his cell. He didn't have the contact information of any of the other Time Agents he'd met before. He wouldn't trust Sergei as far as he could throw him, but he didn't need to trust everyone around him.

"Captain Manes? Are you ready to go?" That was Marcie.

Alex nodded, climbing up the ramp into the time chamber. He was in an Air Force uniform, "Second Lieutenant Keller" embroidered on his chest. In his backpack were the replacement orders for the military-to-military negotiator he would be contacting, the one who he was authorizing to divert the US subsidy to the Ministry of Education. This was essentially a courier mission, so a low rank would save him from being memorable.

He stood in the middle of it, giving Kyle a quick smile before closing his eyes at the 10 second countdown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: the ladder of engagement is not a spycraft thing, though both MICE and RASCL are: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol-59-no-2/pdfs/Shaw-Critical%20Path-June-2015.pdf. The ladder of engagement is a digital organizing and political organizing framework: https://bigduck.com/insights/5_steps_on_your_ladder_of_engagement/


	34. flip on the telly

Alex opened his eyes in the streets of Cairo on October 12, 2007, the city hot and crowded as it had ever been. He watched the car with his father disappear around a corner into the slow Cairo traffic, watching it weave across six lanes of traffic absolutely uncontained by the 3 lanes painted in the middle of the street. Egypt was one of those countries whose name for itself was totally different from what everyone else called it -- given 'Apache' was the Zuni Pueblo word for 'enemy,' Alex got where they were coming from. Just like Germany was Deutschland and Japan was Nippon, Egypt to its own people was Misr, with a long, hard Arabic S made by dropping the middle of the tongue.

When he'd been here last, Alex had remembered their driver telling his father a joke about how in Munich the street signs were declarative, in Misr they were superlative. He seemed to remember not seeing a single streetlight, all intersections controlled by roundabouts. It had taken him 3 days to figure out how to cross the street while his father was in bilateral meetings with the Egyptian Army. Alex had finally found the oldest woman he could at a given street crossing, looked as pathetic and American as he could, and let her walk him across the raging traffic. It mostly seemed to work by luck, determination, and aggressive eye-contact with drivers.

He tried it, and only had to jog out of the way of two Ta-Ta buses before he was at the embassy.

He was delivering the orders at the Embassy's annual Eid al-Fitr party, the big fast breaking dinner at the end of Ramadan. He was glad they'd sent him in his dress uniform, as he eyed the three-pieced suits and ballgowns in line for the Embassy door. He pulled his invitation and his passport out of his bag, tucking the gold-leafed thing in front of his picture page to make it easier for the Diplomatic Security Services officer to check.

He looked around the block as they shuffled slowly forward in the security line. 

He'd always found it impossible to get his head around Cairo. A 20 million person city, sometimes 40 million during the day with commuters. Like Lagos, it was a whole world, the population of New York or California, all packed into one city.

He moved forward a little in the line, scanning for his target. There. Right on time. The man was hopping out of a hired car, tipping the driver and heading towards the end of the line. Alex pulled himself out of the queue, gesturing the Indian consular officer to move ahead of him, and headed back.

"Major Lee?" He asked, and the man's eyes snapped to his.

"Yes, Lieutenant, how can I help you?"

The man was older, hair grey at the temples, but his mouth was wide and his smile-lines deep.

"I was sent with a new set of orders for the negotiations, sir." He said, holding out the file.

The other man took them, glancing around before flipping them open.

"Did you read these?"

"No, sir."

He blinked, looking down at the words again, and back-up at him. 

"This isn't a funny joke, right?"

Alex shook his head. The Major raised his shoulders in a big gesture and then settled down again, adjusting his collar. "Ours is not to question why. This is going to blow the first three meetings the fuck up, but we're on a 2-year time table for negotiations, so it's doable." He shook his head, waving for Alex to join him in line. But Alex shook his head:

"I'm not actually needed inside, this ticket was just to make sure I'd be able to meet you. Do you know anyone who'd like it?" He held out the fancy ticket.

Major Lee nodded, plucking it from his fingers. "I do -- my aide didn't get in and she's been dying to try to dates they're using to kick things off. You sure you don't want it?"

Alex smiled and shook his head, backing away. "I've been to a lot of Embassy parties and gotten to celebrate a lot of Eids -- let her have her first."

"Thanks Lieutenant Keller, that's kind of you."

Alex turned and walked down the street, finding a metro station and getting onto the subway. It was rattle-y and rangy as he'd remembered, but getting out at Tahrir Square was something special. He'd come through here, to go to the Egyptian Museum, his first time around. The walls of the subway station were white tile, and in his timeline, during the revolution they'd slowly become covered with street art, exhortations and mottos and hopes and dreams first. Then -- as the military had cracked down, hired thugs called baltageya to attack protesters -- under the slogans memorials had started to appear. People would take a piece of cardboard, cut out the negative likeness of a murdered friend, their name, date of brith then date of disappearance or death, then race around the city, spray painting it anywhere people would look. And see. And remember.

He'd seen faces like that on the sea wall in Gaza, the one made from destroyed apartment blocks. It had always struck him as so defiant, so brutally beautiful. Refusing to let the memory of dead friends die, continuing to tell their friends' stories.

But for now, they were 3.5 years before the Arab Spring, and the walls of the Cairo Metro station beneath Tahrir Square were white and shiny with a fresh cleaning, the floor gritty with dirt and dust that cities seemed to manufacture for themselves.

Alex wandered up to the square, remembering seeing pictures of it, crowds flowing and crying out, fighting off police; Coptic Christian protesters standing guard over Muslim protesters as they prayed; Egyptians of all faiths holding hands, standing on the steps of the Egyptian Museum, stopping the police or anyone else from going inside to loot or destroy it in those chaotic, effervescent weeks at the beginning of things, when everything seemed ripe for change, and nothing seemed impossible. Even in that lighting bolt of a moment, like the people had in Beirut, Egyptians had protected their history, their culture.

It was evening now, and everyone in the city was at their own Eids, waiting for the time to start eating, celebrating a long month of family, shared discipline, and hopefulness. Alex let himself walk the streets long into the dark, drinking some tea here, getting some shawarma there, just, filling up on the chaotic, flowing life that was Cairo. After he was full, he finally stopped and got a room at the Ramses II, with its garish Ancient Egyptian decorations and beautiful view of downtown. He slept long and deep, finishing catching-up from the long Chadian mission.

The next morning, he took himself to the train station, caught a 2nd class ticket to Alexandria, which the train conductors and passengers all called Alex for short, and spent the afternoon exploring Citadel of Qaitbay, the 15th century castle with its great pale yellow walls diving right into the breakers of the Mediterranean, built from the remains of the Lighthouse at Alexandria. It was a proper castle, not the kind with soft wall hangings and secret passageways for illicit liaisons, but the kind with 3-meter thick walls and murder holes for pouring oil onto the heads of invaders. Alex liked the practicality of castles like this; they didn't try to pretend to be friendly either.

In the gift shop of the Maritime Museum in the bottom of the castle, he bought Michael stone made of the same sedimentary rock as the castle, that someone had carved the Arabic word for love into. He remembered Michael saying he was trying to learn Arabic, had been learning the Arabic names of the stars with his mother. He had no idea if he'd have time to keep studying it during his residency, but it wasn't a hard word to learn, and it would go well with the poem he had given him the visit before.

That gave him an idea. He looked up "My Mother" by Darwish on his phone, and spent the sunset carefully translating it, writing the English version on the back of the receipt from the Maritime Museum. He hoped Michael liked it.

When his mission clock was winding down, Alex found a quiet alley, leaned against the high wall at the back of it, and breathed as the timestream unfolded purple and orange and blue around him.

\--

Alex opened his eyes in a small dark room, with blinds letting slim slivers of florescent light in; there was a cot under the interior window, and a shape gently snoring in it. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw the shape of gentle curls against the hospital pillow, a discarded lab coat for a blanket. The on-call room of a hospital, where doctors could take naps during long shifts.

He eased himself forward, sitting in the scant free inches of the cot. Michael made a drowsy sound as the bed dipped, blinking his eyes open.

"Alex?" He said, trying to blink himself awake.

"Hey, hey," Alex said, reaching his hand up to run his fingers through his curls. "Go back to sleep if you need the sleep."

Michael shook his head, making a frustrated sound. "No, I want to see you." He began to struggle his way to sitting, coordination as blurry as his gaze. Alex helped him up and slid behind him, one leg on either side, so his back was to the wall, and Michael collapsed gratefully against his chest, tucking himself in tightly against him. Alex kept carding his fingers through his hair.

"Long shift at your residency?"

Michael nodded, making a disgusted sound. "Long _residency_. This shit sucks. Good thing I really, really want to be a surgeon or I'd give it all up to sell ice cream in Libya."

"Yeah? That's the backup plan? Selling ice cream in the desert?" Alex kept his voice low, the soft light and the warm man against him giving the moment a dreamy quality, like time might, for once, stand still long enough for them to get used to each other's touch.

Michael nodded, still half-asleep.

Alex curled a lock of hair around his fingers, careful not to tug, just enjoying feeling the silky strands moving across the sensitive skin.

"Hey love, I have a question, and you don't have to answer it, but I've been curious."

"Shoot," Michael said, snuggling his face against Alex's chest, grimacing at the feeling of buttons. Alex reached down, nudging him out of the way to unbutton his uniform jacket, then settling him back against the soft cotton of his undershirt. Michael made a pleased sound, pressing his ear just under Alex's embeded time device.

"How'd you pay for medical school?"

"Huh?"

"Like, medical school and the trips to Libya, and the apartment --"

Michael blinked once, hard, and then peered blearily up at Alex. "You don't know?"

"Should I?"

"It's -- it was the cash you gave me. When I was 14."

Alex shook his head. "I thought about that, but that was only enough for undergrad, and my friend said that medical school could be like $160,000. I'm not trying to pry, I'm just --"

Michael was frowning up at him and Alex tried to backtrack: "It's none of my business, I didn't have a bank account until like a month ago, I don't know what I'm --"

"Alex," Michael said, sounding a little more awake. "What do you mean you didn't have a bank account? Where did you get the money you gave me?"

Alex felt heat rising in his cheeks. "All of my paychecks from the Time Agency, they'd been going into my father's account. I got a bank account, my friend helped me get one, so I could help Sara take care of you." He swallowed. "It was -- it was a really messed-up situation, for me. For a long time. I'm still getting a sense of what's normal, and there's stuff, stuff that's easy for you, easy for people who grew-up differently than I did, to just _know_ \--"

The fog cleared from Michael's eyes. "So you don't know how compounding interest works, is what you're saying."

"What? I mean, I know how interest works, but -- what does that --"

Michael reached into his pocket, pulling out a small iPhone. He searched for a moment, then showed Alex the screen.

"So, Jared and Marie had never invested anything in their lives, but because of you, in this timeline, my Mom and her people had had to figure out what to do with the million dollars each you negotiated for them. So they were pretty good at figuring out where to invest. They couldn't see the future, so Jared and Marie called Mom, she told them to put the whole thing into a Nasdac index fund, which means it basically just parallels the market, and then left it alone, except to pull out once a year for college. And then medical school. All of the dividends and interest went right back into it. When I had any extra money, like from the tattoo business, or teaching in Qatar because that was really good paying work, I put it into the same fund."

Alex could feel his eyes widening. "So -- you were able to pay for it? Yourself? How much money did you make?"

"It just about doubled it. When the economy went to crap in 2008, we set-up a CD ladder that could cover Jared and Marie's expenses, and I set one up too."

"A -- what's a CD ladder?"

"I don't know if that's what it's really called, but basically, once a month for six months or a year, you buy a certificate of deposit, a CD, through your credit union or bank or whatever, for the amount of money you need every month to live. Food, car payment, mortgage, dependents, utilities, debts, tuition, entertainment, all of it. For me, that's about $5000 a month. So you buy one every month for however long you want and need your emergency fund to last -- I like a year, so that's what I have -- and you set them to roll over, so after 1 year, all of the interest plus the principal goes back into another yearlong CD. Then if something crazy happens, you just have the CD roll into your checking account, and boom, once a month for a year, all of your expenses can be paid."

"You have a mortgage?" Alex's voice was rising, and he tried to hush it to avoid attracting attention from outside the small room.

"I actually have two -- the one for the apartment in Pittsburgh is nearly paid off, we bought it when the housing market was terrible, so soon I'll own that outright. I've been renting that place out since I started my residency; the olive trees are massive, you'll love them. They're the only good thing about my apartment here, but the residency will be over soon and it's not like I get to sleep there much. I keep the rent low in Pittsburgh, just enough to cover the mortgage and set aside stuff for repairs or upgrades if the renters need them. But having that apartment meant it was easier for me to get a good rate on my house --"

"You have a house?" Alex felt like he was being repetitive, but this was -- he knew Michael had entire years between their visits, but this was really fast for him.

Michael ducked his head, pressing his lips to Alex's neck. "I bought a house in Roswell this year. I figured, when we catch up, timeline wise, it would be nice to, you know, have a place." He took a breath, and Alex could feel his lashes moving against his skin. "For us." Alex didn't say anything, the idea of having a home just, knocking it right out of him. But Michael kept talking, voice getting faster: "It's totally accessible, all one floor, and there's this space for a garden, but I haven't done anything with it yet. I'm planning to rent it out until we're on the same timeline, so we'd really be moving in at about the same time. I didn't want to assume --"

And Alex leaned down to kiss the worries right out of his mouth, Michael leaning back against him with a sigh. Michael turned a little, to deepen the kiss, palm over his time device, fingers gently brushing the thin skin of his collarbone. Alex's hand sank deep into his curls, cupping the back of his head. He pulled away to say, voice rough: "You didn't have to do that. I would have been happy living with you in an Airstream in a junkyard, But that you've spent so much time and energy and money and care thinking through how this will work for us, it just --" he leaned up, pressing a kiss to Michael's forehead, "It means the world to me. Thank you."

He felt Michael frown a little under his lips: "I'm passing it on. You found a way to give me stability, when you were in what sounds like a profoundly shitty situation. I don't know all of the details and I don't need to, but you deserve stability too. And if I can help with that, I want to."

Alex closed his eyes in the soft dark of the on-call room, savoring the smell and feeling of Michael pressed against him as he settled his head against his chest again, body getting slack.

Alex whispered: "I love you."

"I love you too, Alex."

Michael took a deep breath, stretching a little against him before flopping down again, and then yawned. "Jesus, I wish I wasn't so sleepy, these on-call rotations are brutal. I had an incredible blowjob planned for the next time we saw each other."

"I know it's three years for you, but for me, it's only three more missions. A week, maybe 10 days until we see each other. Until we're all caught-up."

Michael sighed: "That sounds nice. Hey, before the timestream takes you, can you tell me where you've been? It's been about 9 years since I got the last list, and I want to keep it updated."

"Can I borrow your phone? It's probably faster to type it, and you're less likely to forget because you're exhausted."

"Valid call."

Alex started typing in the dates and countries of his last missions. He saw his watch: 208 seconds. As he typed, he said: "Hey, it's after January 20th, right?"

"Yeah -- it's October, 2015."

"So," Alex said, excitement bubbling in his chest, "have you listened to _Hamilton_ yet?"

"Oh my God, Alex -- have you known about _Hamilton this whole time and didn't tell me?_ " Michael's squawk of outrage made Alex want to roll them both over the kiss him until he made that sound, or something equally uninhibited, again.

Alex smirked, adjusting his arms around Michael and continuing to type. "I mean, you're one who played me 'Silence in the Library' when I didn't know who you were and hadn't seen all of _Doctor Who_. I'm surprised you didn't tell me things were 'spoilers,' every chance you got."

Michael chuckled, outrage slipping away as fast as it had bloomed. "It was pretty hilarious." His voice got a little quieter. "That was still the best day I've had. Getting to see you in the sunlight and at night, getting to show you my work and my life -- I just wish you'd known who I was."

"I had this conversation with a friend, yesterday. About time travel and secrets. And the thing is -- you and me, we're on the same page. We want to know each other in sequence, to have as much of our time together be in the order we're experiencing it. That's not always possible, like us seeing each other in Doha, but -- when you come to Roswell, on the day I get back from my first mission where I saw you, you're planning on waiting, right? Letting me get to know you in the same order you got to know me?"

"Of course. That's -- that's what I thought we both wanted."

Alex nodded, pressing a kiss to the top of Michael's head, the smell of his hair warm and soft. "It is. I just wanted to be sure. But if there's something wrong, if something happens and you need my help, you should come to me. No matter where or when I am in my timeline of getting to know you, if I saw you at 28, I would help you. No matter what."

"Of course, Alex," Michael's voice sounded worried. "Is there something in my future, something I should know about?"

"I think you don't want to know, right? If big things are coming, hard things?"

Michael took a breath. "I don't."

"Ok." Alex said, tipping his chin up so their lips met. "Then we'll both go into this, each knowing a little bit more than the other about some things -- our futures, how mortgages work and nuclear nonproliferation and surgery and speaking Arabic --"

"Hey, I've been practicing my Arabic so I can help Isobel -- I loved the poem by the way --"

Alex leaned over, keeping his arm tight across Michael's chest, rummaging in his bag for the stone and the receipt. "I wrote you a special translation of it during some downtime on my last mission. This is from Alexandria, in Egypt."

Michael held the stone up to the thin light through the blinds, reading it. "A rock that says love from Alex, from Alex." He grinned up at him, and Alex had to lean down, to kiss those smiling lips. Michael parted under him, warm and sweet and _there_.

Alex looked at his watch: 42 seconds.

"I've got to go."

Michael's sigh was sad, but he leaned forward, letting Alex slip from behind him.

"I'll see you next year, ok? Stay safe, Alex. I love you."

"You stay safe too, Michael. I love you so much."

Michael gave him a soft smile as he pulled his knees to his chest, watching as Alex moved to the other side of the small room. 18 seconds.

Michael's voice was quiet as he braved his chin on his knees, eyes never leaving Alex's as he spoke-sang: 

> "'Everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree  
>  And no one shall make them afraid.'  
>  They’ll be safe in the nation we’ve made  
>  I wanna sit under my own vine and fig tree  
>  A moment alone in the shade  
>  At home in this nation we’ve made."

His voice, singing Washington's last words from _Hamilton_ , followed Alex back through the timestream.


	35. hurt you, so try

Alex opened his eyes in the time chamber, Michael’s voice still echoing in his ears. He was pretty sure _that_ earworm wasn’t going to come out for a couple of days. He held up an OK sign, calling out: “I’m all good, Dr Valenti.”

“Good to hear it, Captain Manes,” crackled over the microphone. Alex looked around. There were young women and young men, some with paint splattered on their clothes, some in business suits. He knew from his briefing they were Syrian and Egyptian students and successful protesters. He smiled and waved a little; one of the young women in the back wearing a Hulk sweatshirt grinned at him and waved back. All of the others look at her and she shrugged.

The screens went up, Alex undressed, got decontaminated, redressed, and came down the ramp. He spent a pleasant half an hour hearing about all of the changes in this timeline. The Syrian Civil War had lasted two years and Bashar al-Assad was currently buried with his re-interred father at Mezzeh prison. Syria was on their second round of fully democratic elections. Egypt had had a rougher road of it. Decades of brutal suppression of religion in public life -- and decades of exporting Salafists to Saudi Arabia -- meant that the Muslim Brotherhood had come back and run effectively in the first elections. They hadn’t earned a majority, so they’d had to split power with a secular party. It had been chaotic and disorganized for the first four years, but the Brotherhood’s general inability to achieve positive outcomes for the people who had spent decades imagining what they would do for them meant that in the second presidential elections, the Brotherhood ended up a tiny minority party, with several secular parties forming a coalition government.

Alex looked at his phone, taping open his calendar. He had 2 hours before his counseling appointment. He made a plan: he met with Kyle and did his post-mission check-up. While he was waiting for Kyle to finish a test, he texted Rosa:

> **Alex** : How’s it going?  
>  **Rosa** : Pretty good, you?  
>  **Alex** : I have my first therapy session today. Any sage wisdom?  
>  **Rosa** : You don’t have to tell her everything at once. You get to decide what you want to get out of this. Tell her your goals and she should help you with them  
>  **Alex** : Shit! There was an intake form I was supposed to fill-out. I forgot  
>  **Rosa** : Well, chico, go do it  
>  **Alex** : ok ok ok 

He got on his bike, got home, borrowed Kyle’s printer and printed it out, filling out the credit card info on the pre-authorization form and then the intake form. It was, a little spare. He didn’t know what counted as therapy worthy and what didn’t. _I get to decide what I’m going to tell her_.

_Ok._

He closed his eyes. He had half an hour to make a 5 minute drive to her office, so he needed to decide what he most wanted help with.

Not understanding how finances worked; that wasn’t really something he figured Killashandra could help with. But that lack of understanding did come from a lack of control. He figured that was probably the crux of what he was most worried about, how the way that he’d grown up might impact him and Michael. He figured he would only have one, maybe two sessions before he saw Michael. But Michael had bought a house for them. He would probably be ok sticking around Roswell while Alex got his brain sorted out.

He thought about how he was going to talk about his job. He figured, he could tell her it was classified but sometimes he had to do things that were difficult for him. And his schedule was variable -- which he’d already told her -- and that he had a lot of international experience and was still involved in international issues. He figured that was probably enough for one session. He went to double-check his credit card info, and was just considering if he should turn a period into a comma on his intake sheet when he pulled out his phone and texted Rosa:

> **Alex** : I’m kinda freaking out  
>  **Rosa** : You’ll be fine. And if she does something you don’t like, stand up, and walk out

\--

Killashandra’s office was tucked into the corner of a medical complex with a dentist and a chiropractor and a chain dialysis place; he parked the bike in what may or may not have been a spot, but decided it was fine. He went in and sat in the waiting room, hands jiggling between his knees.

Right at 2pm, Killashandra came out. She was a tall woman with waist-length grey and white hair in a loose braid and flowing, comfortable clothes. _Very Hippies of the Southwest._

“Alex?”

He nodded, standing. He overbalanced a little, back stiff, and gripped the chair-arm to steady himself.

“You ok?”

“Yeah,” he said, straightening up. He thought about telling her about his leg, but like Rosa had said, he could share what he wanted to share and he didn’t want to talk about the leg right now.

“Great,” she said. “Want to follow me?”

“Sure.”

The room had a grey-striped couch with two chairs beside it and a third chair facing them; he took the couch. He pulled the papers out of his bag: “I brought the authorization form and the intake form,” he said, holding them out for her.

“Ok, great.” She flipped to the intake form, taking a moment to read it through. “This looks like what we talked about on the phone, thank you.”

She settled back in her chair and he tried to mirror her. “So,” she said in an even tone, “How you doing today, Alex?”

Alex blinked, swallowing: “I got to see my boyfriend today, which was really nice. He, um, he graduated medical school last year and he’s in his residency. He’s almost done. He was tired and it was, it was nice to see him. We only get to see each other a little bit at a time, and I miss him a lot, you know, when I’m not seeing him. But in a week, we’re going to get to see a lot more of each other.”

“That sounds really nice. Is something changing in a week?” Her voice was easy, soothing.

“Yeah, we’ve been kind of, long distance for a while?” 

“And how long have you been together?”

“It’s kind of complicated, we’ve known each other for what feels like forever, but we’ve only been _together_ together for under a month.”

“A lot of talking?”

“Yeah, a lot of talking went into it. A lot of thinking.” Alex took a breath. “It’s my first real relationship, so I don’t really know what the timeline is supposed to be.”

She nodded. “Is that something you talked about with him?”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “He’s got a lot more experience with healthy relationships than I do, so he’s spent a lot of time thinking about how we can manage this for the both of us. He cares a lot about me and I care a lot about him. So if we need to go slower or we need to go faster, we can make it work.”

“You sound happy. It can be really hard to enter into a safe and healthy relationship, to pick someone who will be good for you.”

Alex felt a smile moving across his face and let it. “Yeah, well, I kind of lucked into him. He’s great.”

“I’m glad.” She was quiet for a moment.

Alex filled the space: “He’s -- he’s changed a lot of things for me. Changed a lot of parts of my life. Before I met him," he scrubbed his hands over his face, "I didn’t have a bank account, I didn’t know how investments worked, I didn’t have friends -- I was in a really rough situation. I, um -- my commanding officer is also my father. Was also my father. And he had a lot of control over every aspect of my life, for a really long time. Like, up until a few months ago. And,” he swallowed, “I’ve been unburying myself, right? It’s like I was living in this incredibly deep fighting pit. And I had to fight, every day, just to survive, have the honor of staying in this horrible place. And then I met Michael and I started to climb out. And it’s been,” he paused, “it’s been so much better. I’m really looking forward to getting to see him again.”

“So you’ve mostly been talking online?”

“No -- it’s complicated. But he’s friends with a lot of my friends and they know him and they trust him too. Which is helpful, because I don’t always know who cares for me and who doesn’t.”

“That’s pretty normal, for what you’ve told me about your background.”

“I wish I could,” Alex rushed out, “I wish I could rely on my own feelings.” He rolled his eyes. “That’d be real nice.”

“Yeah,” she said, “you’ll probably be able to get closer to that goal with hard work. It just takes time and practice.”

“Patience we’ve got in spades; we’ve waited a long time for this to be a possibility, in our own ways.”

“That’s a good way of thinking about it.”

“Yeah -- the friends I made, when I just first started getting to know Michael, they really care for me too. And they got me used to thinking about what I want, what I need, and what my boundaries are. You know, all that stuff most people learn at 4 or 5 and that I’m just learning at 28.” He sighed. “Also, I’m getting better at noticing when I’m doing my negative self talk. And that’s kind of why I’m here -- is I don’t know what healthy or normal looks like. But I want to be better. Because I have to live with me. And I want to be better because other people have to live with me too. People who care for me. People who cared for me when I was at a very fucked up place, and seem to like me even better as I start to like myself more. As I get more of a sense of myself.”

“Those are all good reasons to look for therapy.” She leaned forward. “So, the structure of this, since you’re not tied to a particular number of sessions through insurance -- wait, this is your first time in therapy right? So I can go over the basics?”

“I had mandated counseling after a major service-related injury. It mostly dealt with the specific incident and reintegration and service-related PTSD.”

“Ok,” she said, “but it sounded like you had some pre-existing trauma? Was that addressed in the counseling after your injury?”

“No, it wasn't.” he said, swallowing. “'Pre-existing trauma.'" He repeated, frowning. "I guess that's right. It’s -- it’s pretty new for me, thinking about how I grew-up as anything but,” _what I deserved,_ “normal.”

“How did you start thinking of it as not normal?”

“I sort of fell into mentoring a young person. He was in a rough situation. And every time something would happen to me, that I thought I deserved, or I remembered something happening, I started to think -- what could he possibly do to deserve that? And then I, I kept thinking that I wouldn’t want a child to go through what I went through. I wouldn’t want a child to be hurt in the ways that I was. So I started to think, what else might need to change. To make my life the kind I would want for someone I care about.” He swallowed. “I know you can’t make me better, I know that’s work I need to do. But I don’t have the language for this? And I speak a lot of languages. But I grew-up mostly outside of the United States, mostly places where therapy wasn’t available or common. And so I don’t have any kind of skills for this.”

“You do seem to have some,” she said with a smile. “You talked about self-care and negative self-talk, you’ve talked about abuse and trauma.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking to the side. “The negative self-talk is really loud right now."

“Thank you for telling me. We can work on that. Like I was saying, we’ll meet for an hour once a week if that works for you. We’ll talk about how you’re doing. I’ll let you know about patterns I hear. The questions I ask are designed to get a sense of where you’re at and to help you also recognize some of those patterns for yourself. I’ll ask you about things that you commit to doing -- you decide what you commit to do, I don’t tell you what to do -- so I’m here for accountability. I’m here to help you find tools. That’s usually how therapists talk about it. Find different ways of thinking. And honestly, to help you think through timelines for things.”

She fixed him with a clear-eyed brown stare: “It sounds like you’ve made an incredible amount of progress in a very, very short amount of time. So, what I would tell you, as your first piece of official advice in therapy, is: try to be patient with yourself. It sounds like in a couple of months you’ve done more work on yourself than most people do in their lifetimes. And that’s really admirable but it’s not going to be straight progress.” She quirked a smile: “It’s not going to be queer progress either. You’ll need to be able to forgive yourself and be patient with yourself. It’s going to be hard.”

“What does that look like -- what does regressing look like?”

“That’s a good question. So, you might react to somebody as if they’re someone who’d hurt you in the past. Sometimes our brains develop a cast of stock characters and fit everyone into those roles, whether it’s a good fit or a bad fit. Someone’s probably recommended you read _The Body Keeps the Score?_ ”

Alex nodded.

“My friend Kyle did. I haven’t bought it yet.”

She smiled a little: “Some people’s brains tend to make it hard to distinguish between who’s safe and who isn’t. Your friend probably told you that trauma and anxiety involve the sympathetic nervous system.”

“In those exact words, yes.”

She smiled: “It happens to be true. Your friends have talked about grounding?”

“They did -- trying to be present in the moment.”

“Your friends seem to be on top of it. If you haven’t already, you can try progressive relaxation, body scanning, those are all good techniques. At the end of the day, they all give you a little bit of breathing room. To let you decide how you want to react. To calm your body down from it trying to protect you from a perceived threat. It sounds like you’re letting your friends help you -- that’s important too.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have a choice on that one,” Alex tried to laugh but she shook her head slowly.

“You do. From what you’ve told me, you’ve been making the choice, in a really focused way, to get to a better place.” She let that sit in the air, letting it settle like genuine gratitude, personal praise on Alex’s shoulders.

They spent the rest of the session filling in some of the edges of what he’d shared already. Alex stepped outside feeling scrubbed raw. He tried to take a moment, think about what he wanted. At this very moment, what he wanted was -- _Michael_. 

_Ok, other than Michael?_

He was hungry.

He headed to Crashdown, figuring he'd surprise Rosa at work. He swung open the glass door and scanned the room -- it was early for dinner, late for lunch, so it was mostly empty. Except -- there was Max Evans, posted up at a corner table. Alex wondered if this was just his annex office and whether he ever spent any real time in the Sheriff’s station. Alex marched over and sat across from him,

Max’s eyes got big and he fiddled with the brim of his white cowboy hat: “Uh, hi?””

“Hi Max,” Alex said with a baring of teeth that might be called a grin. “Last time I saw you was Michael’s graduation.”

The tension sank out of Max’s shoulders and a goofy half-smile moved across his face. “Man, it’s been hard not talking to you these past weeks.”

“Well, it was easy for me, because I didn’t know what you looked like.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. But Michael said you didn’t want to know --”

Alex held up his hand: “Michael was right; Kyle was right. I wanted to find out on my own timeline. I want to live as much as I can in one particular order. Which is why I’m not asking Kyle and I’m going to ask you not to tell me what’s going on with Michael right now. As much as I _really_ wish I knew where he was.”

A shadow flitted across Max’s face, but he gritted his teeth: “Ok.”

Alex wanted -- desperately wanted -- to ask what that shadow was about. But he heard Michael’s voice clear and obvious in his head. _That's what I thought we both wanted._

Alex leaned forward on the table. “I've been meaning to reintroduce myself to you as an adult. You’re an important part of Michael’s life, and he and I should be on the same schedule in about a week. And I don’t know, I was thinking of, like, a big coming out party or something. But I don’t know who all of his friends are --”

“Well,” Max said, looking around, “Most of them are in Roswell right now. I mean, he’s got friends in Pittsburgh and Doha and Boston, and from his residency, but family’s really important to him.” He leaned forward, an earnest look on his open face. “And you know you count as that, right? What Aunt Nora said at graduation, it wasn’t just posturing --”

“Yeah,” Alex said, “I wanted to know more about that. What,” he looked to the side. “What does it mean?”

Max blinked: “What do you mean, ‘what’s it mean’?”

“When Nora said that I’m family, that she claimed me as family, what does that mean in a,” he glanced around and saw there was no one to overhear, “in an Antaran cultural context?”

Max squinted: “Well, I didn’t really connect with that part of my heritage that much. I was raised by the Evanses, same as Isobel. I know Jared and Marie, I went on the Libyan trips and stuff, but,” he paused, raking his hand through his hair. “It’s hard to explain. Families are much, bigger, than the way they are in the United States right now. It’s a lot more like in Libya, where you have lots of generations living together. And sort of, whoever is best for the kid raises them. That might be their bio parents, that might not be their bio parents. It’s whoever can provide the stability and the structure and the discipline and the acceptance and the love that they need. So, the real intense attachment to biological family isn’t a thing in that culture. You being family means that if you need help, you can come to any of us and we’ll try to help. And if you can help someone in the family, then you should try.”

Alex frowned, looking down at the formica: “And are there any -- any things I should know? Any expectations?” He tapped on his chest: “Every day, for 10 years, I’ve had something from that culture touching me, and I don’t know a single word in the language.”

Max shrugged his shoulders: “I mean, me either. We’re a diaspora. You get some parts of culture, lose other parts. Us third culture kids --”

“Did Michael teach you that phrase?”

“Yeah?” Max said with an eyebrow raised.

“He taught it to me too,” Alex said, smiling.

Rosa wandered over: “Hey chico; Maximo. You two want something to eat or are you just taking up valuable real estate?”

“Can I get a hamburger?” Alex said.

Max held-up his smoothie: “I’m pretty good, thank you though.”

Rosa chucked him in the shoulder with her hip: “Well, I’ll go get that started, then I’ll come back out here and take my break and harass you both, ok?”

“Works for me,” Alex said. As soon as she moved away, he murmured: “What does Rosa know?”

“Oh, she knows about us.” Max lowered his voice. “Not the time travel stuff, just the alien stuff.”

“Oh, _just_ ,” Alex said, feeling his shoulders relax.

Max looked back at him: “You look relieved.”

“Yeah, I just -- I found out from Kyle recently that he knew who you were, that he knew who Michael was this whole time. It kind of threw me for a loop. The idea that all these people I’ve been making friends with knew all of this stuff about me. I'm used to being on the other side of that kind of knowledge, with my job." He took a breath. "But I could use help with who knows what.”

“Oh!” Max said, sitting up straight in his booth seat. “I can help with that.” He held out his fingers, counting them off. “Kyle knows everything Michael would tell him or you told him. Isobel and I know everything Michael’s told us. Not, like, personal details,” a high flush began to gather in his cheeks. “But that,” he whispered, “you’re a Time Agent and I know you’re Jesse Manes’ son and you’re Sara Shanta’s --” And he paused, voice hitching, “I know that you’re Sara’s son. And I know that you’ve been helping Michael his whole life. And that there’s a whole other timestream where he grew-up in a bunch of horrible foster care situations and that guy Noah got his claws into Iz and hurt who knows how many other people and Michael didn’t have any resources, didn’t get to go to college. All that.” He leveled a serious look at Alex. “I know that there was a timestream where Michael’s mother was still in Caulfield, Jared and Marie too. And that you -- you sacrificed something, something major to get her and the others out. Something Michael would never tell me about, except that he wanted to fix it, wanted to undo it. But that he needed your permission to do anything about it.”

“Caulfield was an evil place. I’m glad I could help close it down.”

Max nodded. “I’m glad too.” He looked down at his fingers, continuing to count off: “Let’s see -- Maria knows about aliens but not timetravel. She’s Isobel’s grandniece -- don’t ask.” Alex held his hands up, nodding. Max kept going: “Liz knows everything I know, because she’s, you know.”

Alex raised his eyebrows: “She’s --?”

“Oh, you don’t know -- Liz and I are dating. Have been for a while.”

“Yeah? Liz is pretty great.”

“I’ve known her as long as I’ve known Kyle. We all went to school together.”

“I have a bunch of questions like -- 'why didn’t Kyle know Michael?' 'When did Liz meet him?' But don’t answer them.”

“Ok,” Max said a little too quickly.

“So,” Alex said, looking over at where Rosa was talking with Arturo. “Do you need to give me the big brother speech?”

Max gave half a grin: “The what?”

“The big brother speech,” Alex repeated.

“Well, I kind of think Michael and Isobel and I are all the same age.”

“Fine, then, the sibling speech.”

“You _want_ me to threaten you?”

“Yes, please,” Alex said primly, folding his hands across the table. “I’d like to know that there’s a lot of people in the world who care about Michael. Who are looking out for him.”

“Ok,” Max said, “I think I need to put on my hat for this.”

Alex nodded graciously.

Max settled his white Stetson on his head, arranging his face in a stern look and lowering his voice: “Michael is my only brother. And I love him until the seas run dry. And if you hurt him -- “ he paused, tipping his head to the side, “I will attempt, and then fail, to kill you, because you're a terrifying assassin and I would not be able to succeed. But I would attempt it and I would die trying, because I love Michael.” He paused, and looked at Alex. “Is that good?”

Alex cracked up: “Yes, that should be fine. Thanks for humoring me.”

“I’m glad,” Max said, lifting his hat back off his head. “You should have heard the speech that Michael gave Liz when --” then he shut-up.

“For what it’s worth, I last saw Michael in 2015. So, only 3 more missions. I do a mission about every-other-day. I should see him soon.”

“So, 2016’s next for you?” Max said.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Max said. He opened his mouth to start to say something, then closed it again.

Alex was about to dig into that, rules or no, when Rosa flopped down next to him, setting his burger and fries on the table.

“Hey, does the two of you talking mean that --” she glanced meaningfully over at Alex.

“Yes,” he said in the quiet space between them, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I know about the alien thing.”

“Thank fucking God --” she started.

Max broke in: “But we’re still keeping Michael’s secret, like he wants us to.”

Rosa rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine.” She mimed zipping her lips shut and throwing away the key. “ _Idiotas_ ,” she muttered darkly. Then she brightened: “So, now that we’re all on the same page, can I complain about Iz not returning my texts?”

Max grumbled: “Just because your girlfriend is in another timezone, doesn’t mean she’s ghosting you.”

“Isobel’s your girlfriend?” Alex asked.

“Yeah? Obviously. She’s _super_ hot.”

“I _really_ wouldn’t know,” Alex said, with a half-smile.

“And I wouldn’t want to hear about it!” Max said, hands halfway to his ears.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun,” Rosa said, nudging her hip against Alex’s and stealing one of his fries. “So, does that mean we can invite Alex to the next Alien Movie Night at your place?”

\--

The next alien movie night was the following night at Max’s. There was space in the driveway for another car or truck beside Maria’s mid-century red truck, a space left consciously empty on the couch. Isobel Skyped in, Rose huddling around her phone, showing her the room and smirking to herself as they whispered and texted. It was Kyle and Liz and Maria and Rosa and Max, all sitting around, giggling, watching _Alien_ together, cheering at the screen as Ripley kicked ass and took xenomorph names. 

Max may not have grown-up with his Antaran heritage playing a major role in his life, but he was clearly comfortable using his powers in his own home with people he felt safe with. Partway through the movie, Alex glanced over to see Liz showing Max a papercut on her knuckle. Without taking his eyes off the aliens on the screen, Alex saw him lift it to his lips, kiss it, then touch the hurt place with a single gently-glowing fingertip. It left behind the ghost of the same colors Michael’s touch had left on him, and Liz sighed, snuggling back into Max’s side. He wondered if Liz would put make-up over it or her labmates had just gotten used to her seeming affinity for creative body-paint.

Alex settled back, Rosa adjusting so she was leaning her back against him as she texted Isobel. _In a week, Michael will be sitting next to me here_ , he thought. _Just three more missions. One more week_.

It couldn’t come soon enough.


	36. giving me chills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter deals with a 1994 incident in Hebron, in the West Bank, that may be very upsetting for people with close ties to the region. Just like the descriptions of Rwanda, Sarajevo, Somalia, Cairo, and Iraq, I have done my best to neither sensationalize nor disguise what happened. In addition, I have walked the flagstones where the real man who committed the massacre discussed in this story walked on February 25, 1994 and seen the bullet holes with my own eyes. I have tried to tell what I can find to be true. As I did with the Somalia chapter, I have slightly changed his name out of deference to his living descendants. As a reminder, I am open to discussion on any of the issues I touch on in this story, but antisemitism and anti-Palestinian comments will be deleted. Please remember there are readers for whom discussions of the issues here are not theoretical or academic, but as serious as cancer and just as personal.
> 
> Like with the Gaza chapter, I've formatted this story so all of the details around this mission are in this one chapter; if you need to skip it for any reason, just me let know and I'll give you a summary at the end.
> 
> A brief meta on my process for this piece can be found here: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/622220148463501312/meta-on-the-writing-the-hebron-mission-in-my-love

After they finished the movie, Alex and Kyle walked out together. Alex leaned back against Kyle’s truck.

“So, I’ve got the Hebron mission tomorrow,” Alex said.

“Yeah, I read through it,” Kyle said. “It’s gonna be rough.”

“Yeah,” Alex said.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Alex shook his head: “No. Thanks for asking though. I may come back kind of messed-up. Missions like this can get me that way.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No, but thanks.”

Kyle frowned up into the deep night sky: “I just -- do you mind if _I_ talk about it? Because it’s kind of fucked up.”

“Sure,” Alex said with a smile. “Meet you back at the apartment? I’ve got a little bit of remaining prep to do and I _did_ notice there was no ice cream at the party.”

“Oh _man_. Max is on this health kick thing, and removed all frozen yogurt from the premises. Liz gets her fix at Crashdown. It’s a _real_ trial Alex. A real trial,” he took a breath, “I’d usually host every-other-week, but I didn’t want a bunch of people you didn’t know in our shared space, especially if you were on a mission and didn’t get a say-so.”

“It’s your apartment --”

“It’s yours too. Maybe not on the lease and maybe not for long if things go how you’re hoping with Michael, or you get your own place once you’re both back on the same page, but it’s your home and you deserve to feel like it’s safe. I can eat all the ice cream I want at home.”

“That’s -- “ Alex paused. “That’s really thoughtful of you, thank you. Even if your ice cream fixation is a little ridiculous.”

“Don’t you pretend I didn’t see you bought that fancy sparkly water on the last grocery run. You’re developing tastes, which is lovely, but also means you can no longer mock my sweet tooth.”

“I do not think that’s the case,” Alex pushed away from the truck, muttering: “I like the bubbles. They remind me of quinine water, but without the, you know, quinine taste.”

“I’m glad you like the bubbles. I do not understand choosing fancy bubbly water over ice cream, but you do you.” _In a week, Michael will be doing me too_ , Alex thought very loudly but didn’t say. He strode over to his bike, barely keeping a skip out of his step.

\--

They headed back and Alex pulled out a pomegranate flavored bubble water. Kyle made himself a nice mug of ice cream and settled back on the couch, Alex grabbing his crutches and taking off his prosthetic before and settling into an armchair, pulling the Mescalero Apache blanket from Sara over his lap.

Kyle said: “So, one way to look at it,” Kyle said, looking at a copy of his brief on his laptop, “is you’re going to Hebron to save an American.”

“That certainly is _one_ interpretation of what I’m doing,” Alex said flatly.

“Another is you’re going to stop an act of terrorism.”

“Also true.”

“Why do I have the feeling neither of those is the reason you’re interested in going on this mission?”

“It’s not like I picked it,” Alex said.

Kyle nodded, taking a bite of his ice cream. “Obviously, but, I’m getting the impression that you’re glad about it.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, taking a sip of his drink. It tasted like unflavored mineral water that had been shipped near a pomegranate and it was a _delight_. “I’m really glad we’ve gotten to a place where I can go on this mission. It speaks really well to where the peace process is today, and I think it will do a lot to further it.”

“But _why_. I don’t -- It sounds brutal and terrifying and dangerous.”

“So,” Alex said, taking another sip. “1994. I’m four years old. My father takes me to Hebron; it’s the first souq I remember seeing. He was on this delegation of evangelical Congressmen. They really wanted to see the Tomb of the Patriarchs, also called the Ibrahimi Mosque or the Cave of Machpelah. It’s where most Abrahamic religions believe Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca and Leah are all buried.”

“ _The_ Abraham? I saw it in the briefing, but --”

“Yep,” Alex said, taking another sip. “So it’s holy to 3 major religions, four if you count people who are Baháʼí as part of a major religion. So, access to the tomb is really important. Now, everywhere throughout the region there’s different ways of negotiating access to holy places among faiths and sects. Like, Calvary or Golgotha in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus was crucified, it’s split-up meter-by-meter between different Christian sects. The Ethiopian Copts have this part, the Eastern Orthodox folks have that part. One church controls the place where Jesus was laid out for burial, one controls where he bled. Every different sect has their own tiny part of the story. But the keys to the doors to the entire complex of the Tomb of the Holy Sepulcher have been held by a Muslim family and have been for a century. Because it keeps any one sect from kicking the other ones out.”

“Smart,” Kyle said. He finished a bite. “So, what happened in Hebron?”

“Before February 25, 1994, everyone used the same space. Muslims, Christians, Jews, they used the mosque. There's this large shared space above the tombs with the caves. My father happened to take me there on February 24th." Alex took a sip. "Now, I’m as much of a conspiracy theorist about the Colonel’s timing as anyone, but there’s no way he would choose to risk being in the riots that followed what happened. He values his skin too much. I think he figured because it was Ramadan, things would be quieter during the day. And because it was Purim the next day, there would be festivals to see in Jerusalem.” Alex paused, glancing down at his drink: “You know the pomegranate is the symbol of Jerusalem?”

“I didn’t -- you’d think after decades of Sunday School stories I would have caught that.”

Alex nodded: “There’s -- there’s so much about the region that isn’t covered in American Christianity. So many details, so much nuance and depth.” He took a breath. “Anyway. So we went to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the afternoon, then back to west Jerusalem in the evening. My father takes me there. And we look. The tombs are deep underground, so there’s grated holes on the floor. And you can hear the water moving beneath the floor of the mosque. You don’t get to see the remains, it’s not like a reliquary or an ossuary, but there’s these aboveground stone mausoleums you can look at.”

He took a breath, closing his eyes to remember: “Before we got to the tomb, on the walk there, we went through the souq. It was bright and colorful, smelled of spices and people and life. There’s stone pavers, high walls, shops on either side of this narrow street. If you looked up, you could still see the sky. There were more than 500 shops selling tchotchkes, figures made out of olivewood, they’re selling crosses, they’re selling prayer beads -- those are the things some Muslims use to help recite the Quran -- pretty much anything you want to have. They were built into the walls, with apartments over them. People who owned the shops would live above them, and the shops had these big iron doors,” Alex pressed his palms together, opening them like they were hinged at the pinky. “They would open them to sell, then padlock them at night. They had, for a long time.” 

Alex paused, working his jaw, smoothing his palms down the blanket in his lap. “The next day, this American walks up that street. He’d lived in Israel since the early 80s; he was also Israeli. He was born in Brooklyn, had four kids. He,” Alex’s voice caught. He pressed on: “He was a captain in the Israeli Defense Forces’s reserves, the IDF. He shared my rank. That day, he wore his uniform and openly carried a Galil assault rifle. He walks by the crosses and the olivewood figures of Abraham and Sarah; he walks by the prayer beads. The IDF guards at the Tomb let him into the mosque, because they recognize his rank and he came there often to pray. He walks into the men’s section; the room is packed, because it’s Ramadan. He sees they’re all kneeling, with their backs to him, facing Mecca. He takes out his gun and he shoots 125 of them in the back. 29 men died there.”

“That’s awful.” Kyle said.

“The men killed him. They beat him to death, while he was still trying to fire at them. The survivors killed him. He’s buried in a small tomb in the West Bank that some very, very intense extremists revere and everyone else thinks he was an absolute nutcase. He was condemned by nearly every mainstream Rabbi and this story brings a great deal of pain to every Israeli and Jewish person I’ve met who knows about it.”

Alex took a breath: “What happened next is more complicated. You see, at the time, there were 120,000 Palestinians living in Hebron and 450 people who were Israeli and called themselves Jewish settlers. This man, Baruch Goldman, was a ‘settler.’ I always think of that term as being specifically chosen to make Americans think of settling the Wild West, of open, unclaimed land and brave homesteaders.” 

He snorted, finishing his water and crunching the can between his hands. “Obviously, that isn’t nearly as compelling to me as it is to people with different family histories. But the thing is, just like here, _there were people already living in Hebron_. It’s a _city_. It has been for millennia. So, in Hebron, the settlers were buying, say, one apartment on a block. Their Palestinian neighbors would get worried, sometimes would threaten them, afraid this was an attempt to annex the entire apartment building. IDF would come in and set-up checkpoints, in some cases keeping people from going back to their apartments. It would be like if someone moved in downstairs here, and every single day, the Mexican military made you and I go through a security screen before we could walk up the stairs or down them. Some day, we might get back home after work, and find we weren’t allowed into the apartment at all. Ever again. The olive tree would die, the apartment would fill with dust, you would stop paying rent, and eventually the building owner might just sell it to the couple downstairs, if they had the cash, since no one else was allowed into the building without the security checks. That’s how settlement works in Hebron; in a lot of places in the West Bank.”

He took a breath, rolling the thick wool of the blanket between his fingers: “So, after February 25th, 1994, there were riots. IDF killed 25 Palestinians and injured an uncounted number more, firing rubber bullets into crowds; from their perspective, they were trying to protect Israeli citizens who were settlers. Across the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians killed between five and nine Israelis in the riots. Then IDF partitioned the Ibrahimi Mosque. They partitioned the _city_ , adding checkpoints throughout it, to keep the settlers safe. But they also,” Alex took a breath. “They cleared the souq. IDF soldiers walked up and down the street, and welded the doors of each shop shut. They put chain link fences across the top of the souq, gates at either end, with those turnstyles you use to keep cattle off the road, and metal detectors staffed by conscripted IDF soldiers.”

“Why?”

“Retribution? A quelling measure? It was violent chaos. The partition, it set aside more than half of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, reserved it only for settlers and their guests and foreign tourists, with less than half of the mosque left for 120,000 Palestinians. The street is often only accessible to settlers or foreign tourists. The shop doors are still mostly welded shut and some of the shop owners, unable to make a living or in some cases even return to their shops, sold their apartments to settlers. Or they sold them to somebody who sold them to settlers. It’s not always, clear, how any given piece of property in the West Bank end up in settlers’ hands.”

“We went back there 10 years later. Another Congressional delegation, same cheerful evangelical Congressmen and Congresswomen, marveling at the welded-shut doors, weathering the stares of the settlers. The street was silent. There was nothing going on. There was one shop where somebody had broken the weld, they were sitting there with their son, waiting for IDF to kick them out again. I went through two checkpoints. The IDF soldiers let us walk through with our big backpacks but emptied our guide’s bag -- she was Palestinian and they could tell, but she was surrounded by Americans. So they looked us in the eyes, unzipped her backpack, and upended it over the stone pavers. Now, Sandra knew what she was doing, so she didn’t have anything fragile in her bag. But they were trying to break whatever they could. They were trying to humiliate her.” Alex took a breath: “And there was fencing over the roof of the souq, and it was covered in trash. Sandra said the settlers throw thrash and stones down on people who walk on that street.”

“So,” Kyle said. “The theory is that if this American-born man hadn’t killed those people, there would be no reason for IDF to weld the doors shut; there would be no opening for settlers to work their way into that area.”

Alex nodded, tracing his fingers across the patterns of the blanket over his thighs: “And I don’t want to be unfair. There was a lot of violent behavior from the Palestinians who lived there too. The street is now called Al-Shahadda street, which means ‘Martyr Street.’ A few years ago, two Palestinian men tried to stab the IDF soldiers guarding the street. He stabbed one and they fought him off, shot him in the leg, killed the other. The wounded man was on the ground, screaming, in the middle of the street. There’s a video, taken through a neighbor's window, published by B'Tselem, an Israeli nonprofit focused on documenting human rights abuses in the occupied territories. The soldiers take a moment, while he’s bleeding out, to call their commander. Then one of their reinforcements, a medic, walks over to the man on the ground and shoots him in the head. The video ends, but the description said that the person who took the video edited it to remove an incendiary moment at the end. The description said, after the soldier shot the man in the head, one of the more recognizable settlers came down from his apartment above what used to be the souq and shook the young IDF soldiers’ hands.”

“That doesn’t sound real.”

Alex shrugged his shoulder. “I can show you the video. The person who posted it didn’t want to start riots because they didn’t want to see IDF shoot more people or see any settlers killed, but they also didn’t want to see someone get double-tapped outside of their bedroom window without doing something. Most Israelis were horrified by the video, but there’s nearly no legal accountability for what IDF soldiers do. This case was a major exception, because of the video.”

“This sounds familiar -- a video, a shooting, protests. it sounds like a Black Lives Matter story.”

Alex nodded: “There was some accountability this time, after a lot of Israeli and Palestinian protests. The medic who shot the man, he was eventually demoted by one rank and served 9 months in prison. He was released May 8th, 2018, two days early so he could attend his brother’s wedding.”

“ _9 months_.”

“The Prime Minister of Israel called the whole incident ‘outrageous.’”

“I’ll say.”

“No -- he called the thousands of Israelis and Palestinians protesting the shooting -- he called their criticism of IDF 'outrageous.’”

“Oh.”

Kyle’s cup was empty, his eyes wide. He recollected himself: “So, if you go back and stop him, those soldiers won’t be on that street in Hebron. That man won’t be killed. The doors of the souq won’t be welded shut. Those 29 men won’t be dead, those 125 won’t be injured.”

“And the Israelis who were killed will still be alive and Hebron will be safer for everyone.” Alex said. “It’s a big, complex situation there. I don’t entirely get the settler psychology in the United States and I don’t get it in Israel. But I don’t need to. I just need to know they’re real people. With real families. There are kids living in those apartments above the souq, kids who’ve grownup in Hebron. Kids whose entire life is focused on this identity of homesteading. A lot of Americans really identify with the idea of that.”

“But that doesn’t really explain why you’re excited about it.”

Alex’s voice was soft: “I liked the souq. It was colorful and bright. It was people’s livelihoods. It was healthy, mixed, chaotic in the best of ways. What’s there right now, this silent stasis, it's not healthy for anybody. Not for Palestinians, not for Israelis, not for Muslim people, not for Christian people, not for Jewish people. And I think we can fix it.”

Kyle frowned, looking at him across the low light of the apartment: “I just -- why do you keep all of these stories in your head?”

Alex paused, working a nail between the red and the black on the blanket in front of him. “Some of it was in the briefing,” he hedged, and Kyle huffed. “But -- a lot of this, no one remembers. No one remembers the prayer beads or the shop cats or the smells. You can lose an entire culture in a generation if no one remembers. If no one tells the stories. For a long time, I didn’t have anyone to tell the stories to. But now I do, and I don’t want to be the only one who remembers. I figure, what isn’t forgotten isn’t gone. Not really.”

Kyle reached over, putting a hand on his wrist. “I appreciate you telling me. I’m going to have nightmares, but I think it’s better. Knowing. Rather than not knowing.”

“I hope so,” Alex said. “I don’t know how to forget.”

\--

Alex opened his eyes in the back of a sloped alley off of Hebron’s souq. It was a city built on many hills; San Francisco was the closest analogue he could think of, from what he’d seen on postcards.

He stood in the darkness of the alleyway, massive backpack stuffed with butcher’s paper with some weapons in the bottom strapped to his back. He watched his father tug his four-year-old self to a new shop, child lagging behind. He remembered the colors -- black shawls with bright red geometric embroidery across them, a white cat with orange markings on its face, plastic tops and bracelets with sparkles. He saw himself tug his hand out of his father's, get down on his knees to try to make friends with a shop cat who had tucked herself into a hand stitched leather handbag. He winced as his father ignored him, picked up a knife from the table began to “negotiate” for it, mostly raising his voice and speaking louder, slower English while the shopkeeper folded his arms in disbelief.

The calico jumped out of the bag, trotting to the back of the shop. Alex watched himself clamber after her, the shopkeeper’s eyes following him softly. The cat was preening on a hand-carved wooden side table, all feline disdain, but still within reach of the child. The proprietor looked at him and clucked with his tongue at the cat, who looked over at the sound. She jumped off the table, flounced over to the little boy and reared up to brace her paws on his thigh, making herself available for headpats.

The shopkeeper lowered his voice in his negotiation with Alex’s father, but his father did not follow suit, continuing to shout in slow, insultingly simple English.

The light of the timestream had died down and Alex stepped out into the souq, striding away from his distracted father. He passed racks of prayer beads, kitschy Jerusalem crosses, rice and spices and flowers. He was moving against the current -- most people were flowing towards the Tomb of the Patriarchs, uphill, as Alex worked his way downhill. Baruch Goldman was staying at the Bethlehem Hotel tonight, which was between 30 minutes and 3 hours by taxi away, depending on how the checkpoints went.

He looked up -- the sky was a pure blue with streaks of clouds. No chain link fence; no trash. Well, it was a Middle Eastern city in the 90s, there was trash on the _ground_. But not above him.

He walked through the souq to the old city, past where there would be an IDF checkpoint in a month if he didn’t do his job right, where in 22 years a young medic would shoot another young man in the head on video.

He found a crowded roundabout, European and American-made cars jockeying together, barely moving. He kept his eyes open for a hotel serving westerners -- and there it was, a taxi.

In Arabic, he said: “Good afternoon, how are you?”

The driver replied: “As good as can be expected, how are you?”

“The same. I’m hoping to go to Bethlehem?”

“Ok.”

“How much will that be?”

“100 shekels.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “50 shekels.”

“80 -- we’ll be going through 3 checkpoints,” the man held-up 3 fingers, “and I’ll have to go through them on the way back too.”

“70.” Alex said. The man bobbed his head after a moment, and Alex slid his backpack into the backseat, the wheels catching on the seatbelt before he freed them. Then he followed after it.

Alex settled in as the driver wisely avoided the turnabout, shifting through the gears easily as he went up and down the hills. Thanks to the hard work of the Time Analysts, he had Goldman’s room number; he'd been there for 3 days, obsessively going over the details of his plan. Alex thought through what he had in his bag: a few knives, a few guns, med-spray for healing, a drywall cutter, stud finder, packing straps, a stethoscope, zip tie restraints, fast-dissolving knock-out pills, a cloth gag treated with a soporific agent.

At the very top of the hill, he turned left into what looked to Alex like a parking garage. Alex frowned.

“Where are we going?”

The man didn’t answer. Alex unzipped his bag, slipping a knife free and holding it inside the bag. Kidnapping attempts against Americans were never this spontaneous and simple, but something about being in Hebron was setting him on edge.

They spiraled down a level.

“Where are we?”

“Don’t worry about it,” the man replied.

They curved down another level. There was taxi upon taxi upon taxi parked on this floor.

“Where _are_ we?”

“Calm _down_ ,” the driver said. “It’s a shortcut.”

They went down one more level, then another. Every car was a taxi. There were men standing between them, smoking, enjoying the time out of the heat. Alex had had no idea there were these kinds of parking garages in Hebron and even less of an idea why he was in one right now. Alex was about to slip his knife free, to make his case more emphatically, when he saw daylight. He sheathed it, rezipping his bag.

“Like I said. A shortcut.” 

Alex bit back _you could have said that before turning into a hole in the hill without warning_. But fucking with American tourists was a global pastime, so there was really no point in complaining. Instead he sat back and enjoyed the sounds and smells and density of city life.

Unlike Jerusalem, which was always pale white and dirty, Hebron’s stones were warmer colors, the buildings taller, the streets thick with people. In 20 years, the occupation would fill the city with the stench of anxiety and paranoia, but for now, and felt like a normal city.

They left the city, moving out into the rolling hills, going through villages and towns. A settlement was building a wall high on the hills, overlooking the valley. Over the top of the wall he could see the top of a swingset.

It took an hour, mostly because of the 3 checkpoints, as they worked their way into the low hills of Bethlehem. The city itself was made of white stones, just like Jerusalem, laid out on the rolling hills. The parts of the city that Christian pilgrims would spend their time were off to one side, but the city proper was a buzzing, bustling, multi-faith, multi-ethnic shared space, telephone wires looping between buildings and roundabouts doing their best to control the beeping end of day Ramadan traffic.

The driver pulled into a side street where there was a vegetable stand, waving the owner over. He bought a cauliflower the size of his head, a handful of long carrots wrapped in a recycled plastic bag, some potatoes and some celery.

“You’re making maqluba for Eid?” Alex asked in Arabic.

The man glanced back at him: “What do you know about maqluba?”

“I make an ok maqluba,” Alex said, giving a small smile.

The driver narrowed his eyes and began quizzing him on the delicate questions of his recipe, warming up as they finished the trip.

The Bethlehem Hotel was 5 stories tall with a massive, multi-paned glass window covering the whole front. During the intifada that was to come in Alex's timeline, IDF would park a tank in the front lobby, smashing the whole thing. They would rebuild it, eventually, trying to make whole what was broken.

The Time Agency had arranged for Alex to get a room next to Baruch Goldman’s room. According to the prep work another agent had done, he went to the house of one of his supporters for drinks every night. It would give Alex half an hour to work.

Alex checked in under the reservation the Time Agency had set-up for him, taking the shiny brass key with his room number on it, making his way with his massive bag up the dark red carpeted hallway. Inside the room, he glanced out the window -- it was a lovely view of downtown Bethlehem -- then he twitched the curtains closed. He unpacked all of the butcher’s paper from the backpack, putting it beside the bed for the clean-up crew to handle, leaving the bag deflated. He gently moved the desk away from the wall that separated him from Goldman. He listened for a while; heard bedsprings. He checked his watch: 4:30pm. He should be leaving by six. With his back against the wall and the stethoscope still in one ear, Alex settled in to wait.

Like clockwork, 6pm, the sound of bedsprings again; the bolt being thrown, the door opening, the tread of feet on the carpeted floor, receding down the hallway.

The trick to kidnapping was there was no point in forcing doors. They were reinforced; they might be boobytrapped; and they were exactly the entry point what a paranoid person like Goldman would expect. The thing was, hotels, houses, all of them, were really more a shared fantasy than actual walls. It wasn’t like Castle Qaitbey, with its impenetrable stone and murder-holes in the roof. Modern buildings were mostly air and drywall, studs and wiring.

Alex moved the desk to the side and took the mirror off the wall, laying it facedown on the bed. He got out his heavy metal stud finder, found the studs and wiring, and began to cut through with his drywall knife. There would be one sheet of drywall on his side, and another on Goldman’s. He cut through his side first, knowing that the Time Agency would be covering the damage; he used the stethoscope to listen and heard nothing. Then he cut through the other side. Just as he expected, he came out under the desk on Goldman’s side. He crawled back to his room, emptying his bag of weapons and securing them on his body; the gag and restraints went into his pockets. Then he crawled back through, careful to avoid getting gypsum dust onto the dark carpet on the other side of the wall.

“Yikes.” Alex said as he stood-up. The man had a dozen different guns, all military issue, laid out around the room. Alex knew he intended to use his Galil assault rifle; if it was 10 years later, he would probably have some kind of motion-sensor camera to go with his paranoia; but it being 1994, he didn’t.

Alex knelt and carefully replaced the cut-out drywall, dabbing up the flecks of gypsum from the carpet with a damp white hand towel, and smoothing down the edges so someone would have to be within inches to see the damage.

He tucked himself into the closet. And then he waited.

5 minutes later, Goldman opened the door to the room, after a lot of scratching and failed attempts with the key. He swayed as he walked; Alex figured he had found some liquid courage.

Proper paranoid that he was, Alex watched through a crack in the door as Goldman searched the bathroom, behind the curtain, under the bed, under the desk. Then he approached the closet.

Alex tucked his tongue behind his teeth and stopped breathing.

Goldman flung the closet door open and Alex was on him, knocking him back, hand on the back of his head to keep him from crushing it, knee to the groin to keep him from fighting back too hard. Goldman hit back hard, fist caching Alex’s chin as Alex forced him over onto his stomach. He shoved his hands up painfully high up the middle of his back and secured the zip tie around his wrists and pinkies.

Goldman was cussing him out -- not shouting for help though. Not a lot of help would be offered if somebody burst in and saw him with all these weapons, saw his IDF captain's uniform in the open closet. 

“What are you -- Mossad? MI6? KGB? CIA? -- We’re on the same side! What I’m doing, it will save _millions_ \--”

“Ok,” Alex said, pulling the drugged gag out of his pocket and shoving it in the man’s mouth, securing it behind his mouth. ”That’s enough talking for the day.”

Goldman kicked at him, trying to buck him off. Alex settled his weight on the man’s lower back; it wouldn’t hurt him, but it was damn hard to get someone off of you in that position. 

“You’re going to go to sleep. And when you wake up, you will be restrained by US Marshalls. You will be on your way back to New York City, where you will be indicted for conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, amongst other charges, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.”

The man bucked hard, but Alex bore down, putting an elbow in the back of his head until he was quiet again.

“I can give you pills that will make you go to sleep faster, but there’s not a lot of dignity in being forced to take pills; I would know. We’re going to wait this out to see if you simmer down enough for the sleeping drugs in that gag to work.” 

He held on tight, trying to pick out if he had any new or interesting cusswords to share.

_No dice._

After 10 minutes, the drugs kicked in, and Goldman stopped flailing. Alex gave it 15 more minutes, then stood, ready to pin the man again if he had to; he was snoring gently onto the rug. Alex pulled out a cloth backpack from the bottom of the bag, packing all of his weapons and tools back into it. 

Then Alex tipped him on his side, tucking his knees to his chest and strapping him in place with enough room to breath but not enough to move. He packed him into the backpack and tipped it upright, settling it on its wheels. Then he pulled up the handle, and wheeled Baruch Goldman down the hallway he’d weaved his way up 25 minutes before, down the gold-highlighted elevator, and out the front door of the lobby. 

Alex went around the corner, seeing the car that had been left for him; it had a blue mark on the back license plate. He found the keys under the back left tire, loaded the man into the trunk; he left his brass roomkey on the windowsill of the closed shop beside the parking space, knowing his clean-up crew would know to find it there. Then he set off down towards Tel Aviv.

He rolled the windows down manually; it was dark and dry and smelled more and more of the sea the closer he got to Tel Aviv. He hit a few checkpoints, but not many. It was important the getaway car had the blue mark to indicate it was an Israeli-owned car; Palestinian cars had a green mark and were much more heavily screened at checkpoints, and Alex didn’t want the hassle.

The lights of towns rose and fell around him, the man in the trunk sleeping soundly. He pulled up to the US Embassy, gave his period-appropriate American passport at the gate, was waved through. He pulled into the parking garage, popped the trunk, and walked back out the side gate.

He knew, because his briefing had promised it, that a team of US Marshalls was on standby for the drop-off and would be pulling Goldman out within the hour; he would be on a plane to JFK before dawn. He’d miss the Purim parades; but Alex suspected Baruch Goldman had never particularly enjoyed the floats and costumes and exuberance of that celebration. That was the kind of thing normal people liked, joy and fun and faith, all mixed together; men like Goldman probably couldn’t connect to it. That was the thing the Time Analysts never understood about extremists: they tended to be cowards. They tended to be people who couldn't figure out how to make life workout the way they hoped it could, so they resorted to brutality and violence to try to force the world to their will. They did _not_ tend to be particularly physically strong, mentally acute, or creative.

The mission had gone much smoother than he’d feared; he was pretty sure no one had even bled. He could feel his chin swelling a little from the one hit Goldman had managed to get in. In the past, he wouldn’t have bothered with the medspray for something like that. But he was going to see Michael, and he didn’t want to be bruised-up when he did. 

He walked towards the Alma Hotel. He’d picked it because he wanted a nice view of the Mediterranean and because he’d read in an old guidebook in the Time Agency library there was a small art fair on Tuesdays and Fridays on Nahalat Binyamin street beside the souq -- called a Shuk HaCarmel, now he was in Israel.

After he got a room, he took a shower, the hard water pounding on his back. He felt his chin; the bruise was rising.

He toweled off, leaving his tourist uniform of slacks and a button-up to hang and de-wrinkle in the steam. He thought about what it would be like, bringing Michael someplace like here. Showing him the souq in Hebron, which he hoped would never have been closed in the new timeline after this avulsion; actually sleeping in the Bethlehem Hotel and exploring the ancient and modern parts of the city; bringing him to the queerer parts of Tel Aviv that he’d always heard about but never gotten to see himself.

He pulled out the medspray, leaning in to look at himself in the mirror. He remembered Michael kissing down his neck, the feeling of his hand on his cheek. He sprayed across the bruise, watching the skin go back to before it had been hurt.

Because that was how it worked. The medspray used Antaran tech to determine when a particular piece of skin or bone or cartilage or muscle had last been whole, and returned it to that state. It wasn’t really healing, so much as highly localized bodypart time-travel.

Though it had been a small hurt, it felt better not having it; Alex wondered if this counted as self-care and how he could possibly explain it to Killashandra; _probably best not to try_.

He turned off the lights, tucked himself into bed, and fell asleep easily, thinking of when he would see Michael again.

Alex woke early, heading out to the art market along Allenby street, on his way to the water. It was bright and smelly as only a sea town could be. He wandered through the market, finally picking up a little oil pastel, about the size of his palm. It had a slim line at the bottom that was the Mediterranean, and then above it, the impossible, arcing sky. It reminded him of the view of the sea from Gaza, and how important looking up had been for the people he’d met there.

He took his new painting and his backpack and sat on the beach, watching the families run and scream and play, enjoying the water and the sunlight, wishing for a day when everyone in the region could walk on the same beach, and enjoy the same water.

When his mission clock had 10 minutes left, he stood up, brushing sand off his pants lest Rosa tease him about sandiness again, and found a quiet alley to lean in as he waited for the light of the timestream to flow around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to @aokinspace/allonsyarielle for the awesome recommendation of the Nahalat Binyamin artist market which is on a street of the same name adjacent to Shuk HaCarmel, the main shuk in TLV. Also, I moved history around a little bit. I have no idea where the real man who this story is based off of spent his final nights before murdering 29 people. I put him in Bethlehem because I stayed in that hotel and loved it. It’s a lovely hotel and there is no murder there; though the story about the front window and the tank is true.
> 
> Adding this in, I didn't get a lot of places in this fic to speak to my admiration for the incredible good US Embassies and Foreign Service Officers do. If you need an example, this is an essay I first read in a book called "Inside a US Embassy" that I got at a church booksale when I was 11. It's put out by the American Foreign Service Association and has essays from people working at every position in US embassies, missions, and consulates. It has this absolutely heartbreaking essay from an aide of Amb. Christopher Hill about preventing a massacre of Roma people in Macedonia and I tear-up every single time I read it: http://www.diplomat.am/dir/the_foreign_service/tales_from_the_field/8-1-0-62


	37. in spite of years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a funeral in this chapter for a parent, so if you have a recent death in the family or want to avoid that for any other reason, let me know and I can summarize it for you in the comments!

Alex opened his eyes and looked around. He blinked; he knew this place. It was the community center parking lot on the Mescalero Apache reservation. Over behind the building was where the swingset was, where he'd kept Michael company when he'd first met Max and Isobel.

The parking lot was fuller than Alex had ever seen it, and the sun baking down on him overhead looked to be at about noon. He stood up from his crouch and looked around: the cars were empty except for one, at the far end. It looked like Maria DeLuca's red 1960s Ford truck.

A familiar head of curly hair, bend down over the steering wheel, back shaking.

Alex ran to the passenger-side door, tapping on the window as soon as he got there.

"Hey, hey," he called through the glass. "What's going on?"

Michael turned his tear-streaked face to him, shaking his head: “No, _no_.”

Then he took a breath and opened the door, sliding over on the bench seat. Michael was -- he was wearing a suit. Black, with a sky blue collared shirt under it. Black shiny shoes. Alex looked over at the community center; Michael had tissues in his hands, was mopping at his face. Playing from a modern speaker carefully integrated into the mid-century dash, Alex heard a chorus singing: 

> _Who lives_ _  
> __Who dies_ _  
> __Who tells your story?_

Michael reached out his arm, taking his hand and pulling him onto the bench seat, Alex shutting the door to keep out the heat and sticking his backpack into the footwell. Michael put an arm around his shoulders, tucking him in tight, body shaking a little. Alex wasn’t sure what to say, so he asked: “What is it -- is it Isobel’s wedding? Do you not like her husband?”

Michael let out a wet laugh: “You know, I had a lot of different days this year I was hoping I would get to see you. I finished my residency, saw Isobel off to Libya -- that was a hard night, I would have liked to see you. I gave an implant to a baby; she would have died without a heart transfer. A lot of good stuff.” He laid his hand carefully on the steering wheel, gripping hard enough the bones show thin against his skin. “This is not a good day.”

“Michael, what is it?” 

> _But when you’re gone, who remembers your name?_ _  
> __Who keeps your flame?_ _  
> __Who tells your story?_

He was still talking: “But I guess that’s what this thing does,” he gestured to the device just over his heart, and its twin in Alex’s chest, “It brings us together when we both --” he took a breath, “when we both need each other. It’s like plants, right? All of our tech is biological and tech, and plants don’t need to be sentient to be able to heal. Plants grow towards the sun without thinking about it. I guess this,” he laid his hand over Alex’s heart: “These bring us together, at the moment of greatest hurt, or greatest help.”

“Michael,” Alex whispered. “What day is it?”

Michael swallowed: “Sara’s funeral.”

> _While she’s alive, we tell your story_ _  
> __She is buried in Trinity Church near you_ _  
> __When I needed her most, she was right on time --_

Alex covered his mouth with his hand, feeling his shoulders begin to shake.

Michael swallowed, voice dull and numb: “Isobel didn’t see you on the guest list. 2016 you. She couldn’t invite you separately, I told her not to,” Alex nodded. He kept going: “Flint and everyone were invited; your fucking monster of a father was invited and I couldn’t tell them why not.”

“They sent me on a mission,” Alex said, voice flat. “They wouldn’t let me come.”

“Yeah.” Michael said, “I figured.”

> _And I’m still not through_ _  
> __I ask myself,_ _  
> __“What would you do if you had more time?”_

Michael’s tone was numb: “She would call me, every few months, and keep up with me. And --” his voice cracked. “She was so proud I graduated medical school.”

He seemed to steel himself for a long moment, listening to the music.

> _The Lord, in his kindness_ _  
> __He gives me what you always wanted_ _  
> __He gives me more time -_

“I told her last year, that I’d met you. That I’d seen you. And she told me she didn’t want to know any more, except if you were happy.” He stole a glance over at Alex. “I told her you were getting there. And I know she didn’t want to know things about her future, but I wanted -- “ he took a breath, and it shook in the cool air between them, “I know she wasn’t allowed to see you. She told me -- I know the Colonel threatened to hurt you if she contacted you. That she stayed away to keep you safe. That she was kept away from you so long. And I --” he paused, “I just wanted her to know you were ok.”

> _I help to raise hundreds of children_ _  
> __I get to see them growing up_ _  
> __In their eyes I see you, Alexander_ _  
> __I see you every time --_

Alex could feel that his voice would crack as he said: “Thank you. I -- I never -- I never got to see her again. Not just us. Not after I joined the Time Agency. And none of the trips they sent me back for have been here -- ” he paused, jaw shaking. “I’m glad she died knowing that I loved her. That I was happy.”

Michael tucked Alex a little closer to him.

> _Oh, I can’t wait to see you again_ _  
> __It’s only a matter of time --_

“How long do you have?”

Alex glanced down: “812 seconds.”

Michael took his arm off his shoulders, sliding it in between them, wrapping his fingers around Alex’s, squeezing tight. A little too tight, but Alex wasn’t going to object to the grounding feeling.

“You want to go in? See part of the service, say goodbye?”

Alex took a shaking breath: “I do.”

Michael let the last few seconds of the song play out before he disconnected his phone:

> _Will they tell your story?_ _  
> __who lives,_ _  
> __who dies,_ _  
> __who tells your story?_

He opened the driver’s side door and Alex followed him out, unwilling to let go of his hand to use the closer door. They walked slowly around the big building, towards the front entrance, steps in sync under the high New Mexico sun.

“Jared and Maria are there, so are Max and Isobel. Nora couldn’t come. Travel got harder for her, she hurt her hip. She hates saying it, says it makes her feel like an old lady,” Michael said with a damp smile.

“She’s like 100, she’s allowed to feel like an old lady,” Alex said, trying to keep the tone light as they turned a corner; Alex could hear the sound of an amplified voice. _Probably the eulogies._

“Yeah,” Michael said, voice quiet. “But she’s doing well. She sends her love, keeps asking when I’ll see you again. Doesn’t seem to get that it’s not, like, a scheduled occurrence.”

“Just at the time of greatest need.” Alex said, thinking back to what Michael had said. He could see the swingset now, the entrance near them. His steps slowed a little and Michael matched his rhythm.

“Maybe it’s where an avulsion will do the most good. Like, if I hadn’t known I could come out to you, that would have really changed my comfort with myself.”

Alex nodded: “And when I came back from the Strait of Hormuz, what I really needed was comfort and touch. That time with you, it gave me the strength, the space I needed so that when I got back to my own timeline, I was able to get some kind of justice for the men who died. I don’t think I could have done that without knowing you were ok with me.”

“And if I’d gotten my head kicked-in at Pegasus or with Mr Ridley, none of the rest of it would have mattered or been possible.”

Alex pressed a kiss to his shoulder as they stepped into the entryway of the community center, the big hall just in front of them: “I’m really glad I’ve stopped arriving to see you in the middle of being beaten. I don’t know if I could take seeing you get hurt again.”

Michael squeezed his hand, but kept silent; they were in the hall now. Somebody had hauled three rows of a dozen long benches into the hall; they were all full, with bodies lined up in the back of the room. Alex remembered some of the faces from the reservation, that he’d seen now he’d started spending more time in Roswell, people from his mother’s protest parties. He could see Kyle up front, with Liz and Rosa beside. Michael herded him to where Isobel and Max had held a space for Michael at a bench in the back, and when Isobel saw Alex she began nudging Jared and Marie to make some more space. Alex ended-up tucked between Michael and Isobel, Michael’s arm behind his back, body warm against his side, Isobel giving him as much distance and space as she could. 

She gave him a sympathetic look before refocusing on the speaker. Michelle Valenti was at the podium on the small stage, faded red curtains pulled across what would be a community theater set behind her. She was in the middle of speaking:

“Sara Shanta raised four boys and loved them. She also raised-up her community. Fighting for women’s rights, tribal sovereignty, access to education, whether on the rez or with the Congress critters who are suppose to represent us. She cared deeply about her people. And her people were indigenous, they were women, they were men, they were nonbinary people, they were immigrants, they were refugees. Her people were queer, they were rural, they were courageous. Her people are in this room today. I know some of her sons couldn’t be, but I like to think they wanted to be. Sara -- she understood the gap between wanting and getting, the ways in which life can be so, brutally unfair. And that you still had to open your eyes to a new world every day, look at it seriously, and see what you could do to fix it.” 

She paused, looking down at her notes. Alex’s hands were shaking on his thighs and Michael pulled him in tighter, gently tipping his head against his shoulder. The lining of Michael’s suit was silky against his arm and he tried to focus on the details. Alex was sure it looked like Michael was making weird hand gestures in the empty air, but they were in the back of the room, and everyone was watching Michelle.

“Her death was unfair. A car accident. On rez land. I wish I could tell you there was some vast conspiracy, some reason she was taken from us at 48. But accidental injuries leading to death are the third most common cause of death in Indian Country, after heart disease and cancer; most of those deaths are from car accidents. The ugly reality is that she was taken from us by bad luck, under-investment in the roads, and a rainy day. We’re going to miss her bitterly. Her family -- those she adopted, those she loved and was kept from, those who loved her dearly -- will never be the same without her. We will never forget you. Rest in power, Sara Shanta.”

She stepped down from the stage; Alex checked his watch: 614 seconds. Someone Alex recognized as one of his mother’s friends from the reservation stepped out of the shallow wings. 

“As you know, this is the community celebration. The traditional funeral will happen later, open to enrolled members of the tribe. We wanted to include people from all the parts of Sara’s life, which reached so far beyond the borders of our nation. Everyone here was on the receiving end of one of Sara’s calls to action -- food for someone who was sick, solidarity at a court hearing, a protest, a picnic fundraiser, a quiet word with a person powerful enough to fix something, a day lobbying in Sante Fe. Patrice is one of Sara’s friends who can speak to that part of her life.”

Alex jerked his head up, watching as Patrice Shapiro worked her way up the stairs. She stomped to the mic, pulling it down to her level before speaking.

“Sara and I didn’t know each other very well,” she started, speaking without notes, voice halting. “We were both involved in some of the anti-hate crimes work in the legislature. She worked on violence against native women, and I worked on antisemitism in the early 1980s. Before she met her farshtunken husband. And there was a song, that I taught her, that she later told me was her favorite song. I learned it in Yiddish from my mother, it was originally from a musical but over time it became a folk song, one a lot of people learned at Jewish day camp:

> _“Oyfn firl ligt dos kelbl_ _  
> __ligt gebundn mit a shtrik -- ”_

Her voice was low and rough, but there was a strength to it as she hit every note. Alex straightened up in his seat, Michael shooting him a glance before adjusting to give him room. She stopped singing with a grimace:

“But I don’t think any of you speak Yiddish here, so I’ll sing it to you in English. For me, I think she loved this song because it spoke to the kind of change she wanted to make in the world:

> _“On a wagon bound for market_ _  
> __There's a calf with a mournful eye_ _  
> __High above him there's a swallow_ _  
> __Winging swiftly through the sky_
> 
> _How the wins are laughing --”_

Alex had to stop himself from humming along, singing the song that he could still hear in his mother’s voice.

Patrice leaned on the podium, the battered wood rocking under her weight: “Now, this starts out with a heartbreaking scene. There’s a calf that’s going to be slaughtered in the market. There’s a farmer who doesn’t care how scared it is. There’s the winds, who seem to be making fun of his fear. And there’s a swallow, who’s keeping company with him, but doesn’t really understand what he’s going through. Doesn’t know how to help.”

> _"Stop complaining!" said the farmer_ _  
> __'Who told you a calf to be?_ _  
> __Why don't you have wings to fly with_ _  
> __Like the swallow so proud and free?'  
> _ _How the winds are laughing --”_

“It stays cruel. The farmer is speaking from a position of privilege. People say, you don’t want to be oppressed, just stop being gay, just leave the reservation, just convert. The idea that you can change something,” she put her broad hand on her breastbone, pressing in, “ _inherent_ about you to make it easier for people to be around you is a core part of almost all bigotry, all hate. It’s the idea that people who are being oppressed made some kind of choice: ‘Who told you a calf to be?’ And it’s that lack of sympathy, much less empathy, that underpinned a huge amount of the pain that Sara sought to fix in the world.”

> _“Calves are easily bound and slaughtered_ _  
> __Never knowing the reason why_ _  
> __But whoever treasures freedom_ _  
> __Like the swallow has learned to fly”_

“Now, this last verse, it can be easy to misunderstand. And I want to make sure you understand what Sara believed about it -- what I believe about it. This isn’t telling the calf to become a sparrow. This isn’t mocking the calf for being born how it is. This is saying that, before you end-up in the back of a truck, bound and ready for market, you need to learn how to fly. That getting free requires new tools, tools that have nothing to do with what people think you are. That if you treasure freedom, if you want to be free, free to worship as you choose, free on your own land, free to love who you love, you have to make yourself into something entirely new.” 

She frowned, wrapping her knuckles on the top of the podium with each strident word: “Without changing the center of you. Without forgetting what you’ve seen, what you know to be true.” She took a breath. “And it doesn’t say the calf has to be saved -- because other than an abuser, there’s nothing Sara hated more than a white knight. ‘You have to learn to fly,’ and to me, that meant learning to get out. If you’re in a situation that’s untenable, you have to learn to get out. And that’s not something someone else can do for you, it’s something you have to do for yourself. But the calf wouldn’t know how to fly without the sparrow, without an example. Its parents sure as shit couldn’t teach it.” 

She worked her jaw: “And so, sometimes Sara was the sparrow, riding along with people as they were taken to market, bound and too late, only there for company. Sometimes, she was afraid she was a farmer, binding up others into things they didn’t want to do. But at her best, she was the power that allows the calf to fly. She was the thing that allowed people to become something they always had the capability to be, but never knew they could.” 

Patrice rocked back on her flats, looking out across the silent room: "Sara Shanta was an activist, a mother, an indigenous woman, a survivor of abuse, and a kind person who I wish I’d known better. Will everyone here join with me, singing the chorus? It’s just the word ‘Donna,’ so I’m sure you’ll get it together. We’ll be singing it three times, to give everybody a chance to gather up their courage.”

> _"Donna, donna, donna, donna, donna_ _  
> __D_ _onna, donna, donna, donna, donna --”_

On the second repetition Alex broke, burying his face into Michael’s shoulder. He held back to sobs to say: “Can -- can we go outside?”

“Sure love, of course.” 

Michael stood, arm around his waist, slipping out of the room as the voices of Sara Shanta’s people rose up around them. He slipped them out of the room and as soon as they were in the quiet heat of the New Mexico summer air, Alex wrapped his arms up under Michael’s shoulders and sobbed into his neck. Great, horrible, painful, exhausting sobs. He tried to make sure he was breathing in enough oxygen. He didn’t want to show up, passed-out, tear-stricken on the bottom of the time chamber floor.

After a moment, Michael whispered: “Love, it’s going to take you back in about 60 seconds. I think you’re going to want a second to get ready.”

Alex held on even more tightly, even as he began to shove his emotions back into boxes. They felt like octopi not wanting to be put to bed -- an arm flailing here, an arm sucking there, generally chaotic behavior. Michael moved his hands between them, tugging his own blue shirt out of his pants and patting the tears off of Alex’s cheeks as Alex kept a grip on Michael’s shoulders.

“Hey, you said they put up screens, right? So, it’s ok if you need a couple of minutes to collect yourself while you’re there.”

“Ok,” Alex choked.

Michael pressed his forehead to his: “Hey, we’ve got, what, a week left for you, two more years for me?”

“Yeah,” said, voice sounding a little more normal.

Michael pressed a solid kiss to both cheeks and then to his lips. “See you then. I love you. Make sure to talk to your friends, give yourself some quiet time.”

Alex nodded, body still shaking with it. 

Michael swallowed, stepped back, running his hands down the side of Alex’s arms, gripping his fingers before letting go.

“Stay safe. I love you.”

Alex gripped his back. “I love you too.”

Michael stepped all the way back, giving Alex the 6 feet he needed.

At 10 seconds, he stopped being able to breathe. It felt like choking; he tried not to panic. The blinding light yanked him back, blocking Michael out, and then he was whirling backwards through his timestream.

When he landed, he forced his arm up in the air, OK symbol clear, face down so no one could see his expression, voice low and gutted when he said: “I’m fine, I’m ready for the screens.”

The light changed as the screens went up, and Alex knelt in the middle of the time chamber, put his arms over his eyes, and silently sobbed.


	38. takes you further every day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is our last fairly fluffy chapter for a while, but there’s a brief mention of child marriage and transgender rights issues; both are handled lightly, with the former condemned and the latter affirmed, but I didn’t want anyone to be sideswiped by it since those haven’t been themes thus far.

Kyle’s voice came soft and clear a few minutes later: “Captain Manes, are you ready?”

Alex had stopped crying, body still shaking with silent gasps. He was not particularly willing, ready, or able to meet with the dual Israeli and Palestinian delegations. He took a deep breath, trying to figure out if his voice was going to catch.

He swallowed: “I don’t believe I’m fit for the honorable attendees. Would you mind clearing the room?”

“Are you injured?”

“No,” he said, voice quiet. “No, I’m fine.”

Flint’s voice: “Captain Manes, these people have come a long way to see you --”

Kyle’s voice cut-in: “Captain Manes, would you be able to join them after some time to collect yourself?”

“Of course I’d be delighted to meet with them,” Alex gutted out.

There was a pause, during which Alex imagined Kyle was glaring Flint into submission.

Then he heard Flint’s voice: “If everyone would follow me to the reception room, Captain Manes will be joining us in about 20 minutes.”

Alex levered himself to standing, pulling off his clothes mechanically and stuffing them in the go box, keeping a careful hold on the stool. His body felt weak, like he’d just jumped off an emotional cliff into arctic water. He scrubbed his face with his hands, feeling his eyes getting puffy.

God, he hated crying. It was the worst.

“I’m ready,” he called out. The gases filled the chamber, then emptied. He got into the change of clothes, shrugging on a fresh prosthesis. The screens took a while to come down, and it took a moment to figure out why. Kyle hadn’t just cleared the room of dignitaries -- he’d cleared it of everyone. So, there was Kyle Valenti, stalling and hauling screens. He started the ramp-lowering sequence and when it was secure against the polished concrete floor, Alex stepped out.

“Hey, man, you ok?” He said.

Alex bit his lip and shook his head. He pitched his voice as low as possible, so the microphones wouldn’t pick it up. All he said was: “Sara’s funeral.”

Kyle’s face bloomed with hurt and empathy. “Oh, man.” He widened his arms a little bit and then froze; Alex couldn’t remember hugging him before. But he nodded, taking a step into Kyle, burying his face in his shoulder, taking a shaking breath.

He didn’t smell anything like Michael, didn’t feel anything like Rosa, but right now there was a part of Alex that wanted to know there was a human heartbeat near his.

“Hey, I can tell them you can’t come, if you need the time --”

“No,” Alex said, “this mission was a big deal. An entire city got their souq back, their freedom of movement back; lots of settler families had to find someplace else to be. It’s a really big deal.”

“Your wellbeing is a big deal.”

Alex nodded but said: “I could use the distraction. Being Mission Alex for an hour would help. I promise I’m not just compartmentalizing and pretending I don’t have a problem. I’m going to see if Rosa has some time to talk it out.”

“You know you can talk to me too,”

He nodded. “You carry a lot of water for me day-to-day, I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“You’re not going to.”

“Still, I feel better spreading it around.”

“Ok.” Kyle said, dubiously.

Alex pauses, saying: “Your Mom gave a beautiful speech.”

“She did. You were in the back?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, taking a breath. 

“I remember Arturo baked an entire table of churros and Sara’s favorite chili chocolate cake and Mom brought her posoles and Mimi brought the whiskey. Did you get anything to eat?”

Alex shook his head. He held onto Kyle for another 30 seconds then he pulled back. 

He swallowed: “Do you have anything that could make the,” he gestured to his face, the redness and puffiness, “go away?”

Kyle got a slightly shifty look on his face. “If you _promise_ not to make fun of me for having Iceland Skyn Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels in my office minifridge, you can definitely borrow one -- but you have to not tease.”

Alex seriously weighed those two options and came down in favor of shared vanity: “I promise I won’t mock your Iceland Skyn Hydro Cool Firming Eye Gels.”

“Ok,” Kyle said.

They walked out through the hallway. Alex spent 15 minutes standing in Kyle’s office with a mask over his face, feeling the redness and swelling beginning to subside. 

“They’re really good for headaches,” Kyle said defensively from his chair.

Alex blinks slowly, feeling his eyelashes catch against the soft plastic of the mask. “Kyle, you have the smallest pores of any man I have ever seen. I did not assume that you got to look the way that you look without some kind of intensive routine. I’m not going to judge you. Or tease you.”

“Alright,” Kyle said. “But there is a medical purpose.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a metrosexual.”

“ _That’s_ a term I haven’t heard since John Kerry was running for president.” He paused. “I still don’t get why you can’t change the outcome of the 2016 election.”

“The Hatch Act is serious business.”

“You _literally_ just re-wrote Israel’s history.”

“After their -- and the Palestinians’ -- democratically elected politicians agreed that that’s what they wanted to do. Majority representation has to show up someplace in the process.”

“A majority of people voted for Hillary.”

“True,” Alex said. “It’s not that I haven’t thought about it, but I don’t make these choices unilaterally. Because if I start doing that, then someone less like us and more like the Colonel might do the same.”

“What about when you change things for places like Chad? It didn’t used to be a tourist destination and cultural center in central Africa before your last mission, right? When they don’t have a real democratically elected government?”

“Then the Time Analysts do their best, based off of what polling and other supporting data tells you people would have wanted if they were allowed to vote.” Alex shrugged. “It’s an imperfect system, but doing nothing is just a vote for the status quo.”

He could hear Kyle’s grin. “There you go. You must be feeling better already, lecturing me on geopolitics.” Alex stuck his tongue out and then tucked it back into his mouth with a fake-smirk.

He heard Kyle get out of his office chair. “So, you ready to go meet some ambassadors?”

“What, you’re coming?” Alex said, pulling the mask off.

“You just had a hard day. I can put-up with talking to some other countries’ Congress critters for an hour.”

Alex narrowed his eyes: “You saw the caterers setting up the buffet.”

“I did see the caterers setting up the buffet.”

“You just want kunafa.”

“I do just want just want kunafa.”

“That’s fair, kunafa’s great.”

—

Alex dragged Kyle out of a debate on battlefield triage ethics with a member of the Knesset and down the polished concrete hallway towards the parking lot. 

“That man has literally shot people in the head, Kyle, you’re not going to win that fight.”

“But—“

“I’m going to bake a cake tonight. Do you want to get to choose the frosting or not?”

That shut Kyle up. His eyes were deeply suspicious. “You hate sweets.”

“I do.”

“Why are you baking a cake?”

Alex wheeling on him, knowing he was drawing stares from the Time Analysts in the lunchtime hallway and _just not caring_. 

“Because in less than a week I’m going to get to see Michael. And in 20 years of him knowing me, we’ve never celebrated a birthday together. Never danced for more than the 30 seconds he tried to get me to when he was 16. Never slept the whole night in the same bed. There’s so many experiences we get to have for the first time, and my Mom used to bake me a birthday cake every time she got to see me and I never told her I’d stopped liking sweets and I never learned how to bake from her and I want to be able to have something, just one thing, that’s hers and mine that I get to share with Michael. Now will go come to Walgreens with me and pick out a box cake I can make or should I text Rosa?”

Kyle’s face had moved through irritated to baffled to sad to surprised to kind, and now he looked a little misty. 

“Of course, Alex. I’ve got just the right chiles to use.”

They baked a Devil’s Food chocolate cake together with fresh ground chiles mixed in for heat, Kyle’s topped with chocolate icing. Alex told Kyle stories about his one week a year with Sara and Kyle told him the stories he knew. Alex didn’t much like the taste, but the texture of the buttercream frosting was nice. 

He went to bed that night, imagining sharing a birthday party with Michael, seeing him in a silly hat, watching him move balloons around the room with his powers. He heard the echoes of her lullaby in his dreams. 

—

The next morning, he woke up to a message from Clara Power. It simply said:

> Hi Alex,
> 
> I think you’re gonna love this one. 
> 
> C

—

Alex opened his eyes to the black volcanic peaks that surrounded Aden, the port city that had at one time been the second busiest in the world. He was carrying the most money he’d ever brought on a mission and couldn’t suppress the bubble of excitement in his stomach about what the day would bring. He watched a rickety Honda on its 5th owner grumble past in the predawn darkness, remembering picking at the threadbare seats while trying not to get jostled into his father’s shoulder on the long and bumpy drive to Sana’a.

Yemen in 2003. Before cholera and the war; before the drones and the famine; after the USS Cole and 13 years into Ali Abdullah Saleh 21 years as President. This mission had come through the Department of State, at the special request of the 2011 Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate Fatima Karmen. Back in 2018, she was still waiting out the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s bombings from the safety of Turkey, but somehow Clara had gotten her opinion on the best way to prevent the war from coming as it had. 

_It’s not just one thing; it never is. But let’s see what we can do_. That’s what the Nobel Laureate had said in the email included in his briefing.

It was like something out of a fairy tale: in the past month, 5 men and 5 women across Yemen had awoken to find a stampless postcard on their doorsteps that simply said in a careful handwritten script: “Come to Cisterns of Tawila on January 5th, 2003. There will be a man there you have never seen, and will never see again. He will give you what you need for your project.”

Alex started walking; it was 2km uphill to the Cisterns of Tawila in the Crater neighborhood, the oldest part of the ancient port city. Aden of the few cities in the world nestled in the caldera of an extinct volcano. His briefing had reminded him that thousands of years before, engineers living in Aden had dug out deep vaults into the porous volcanic rock at the neck of a valley, sealing the pores with cement made from volcanic ash to make them watertight, they allowed the annual monsoon rains the pour down the wadi and fill the cisterns. Before the 19th century occupation by the British, the 53 Cisterns of Tawila had stored nearly a hundred million gallons of water at a time, just one safefast of a vast network of cisterns across the city and the country managing water. Alex had seen the cisterns at Masada that had protected Ancient Jewish people from the Roman siege and the water vaults in the remains of Tsankawi near Los Alamos, where the Ancient Pueblo’s bare footsteps had worn the soft white stone into deep, hip-high runnels. Desert peoples always knew where the water was and how to protect it.

Today, only 19 cisterns survived whole, still protecting the old city from the monsoon season floods that came raging down the wadis surrounding the city, still providing water for the people who needed it.

Alex could always tell when someone from the region had helped to design a mission: they never forgot that people have always been engineers and artists, comedians and nature nerds, planners and free thinkers. They never forgot how much foresight and wisdom the past can give us, if we just know how to look.

The city was coming to life under his feet, the rumble of cars mixing with the brays of burros, the clatter of pans as people started to cook breakfast and the squawks of children asking when it would be ready; and there, floating like the common air shared between everyone, was the call to prayer. He still loved it, loved how it touched every person the same, loved the chaotic dissonance of every mosque having their own sense of timing and rhythm and volume. 

One of the benefits of looking so obviously American, even in his tourist get-up with the overlarge backpack, many-pocketed hiking pants, deep blue henley and sturdy boots, is no one expected him to head into any of the mosques. Most people prayed in their homes or at their jobs or at the side of the road on a prayer rug stashed in the trunk when the time came; but if they were out and about anyway, a bit of morning community prayer was a nice start to the day.

As the volcanic rock of the ground rose under his feet, the sun finally began to peak over the edge of the crater, highlighting one of Alex’s favorite parts of Aden: the tall brick buildings, walls covered in patterns of different colors of bricks, reds and whites and browns mixing in stunning geometries. They weren’t the mud-brick skyscrapers of Shibam Hadramawt, where the ancient buildings were 10 stories tall and that some tourism mongers had taken to calling “the Chicago of the desert.” But they were sturdy and unique and beautiful, and Alex loved walking in their winding shadows, amongst the smell of petrol and human bodies and under high, bright calls of seagulls.

He reached the pale arching stone bridges dividing the the cisterns as the sun was beginning to climb beyond the rim of the crater, settling down his backpack on the rim of the low stone wall overlooking carefully-kept water.

He was just eating a bit of the cake Kyle had sneakily packed into his backpack, enjoying the spike of heat on his tongue, when a shadow fell across his lap. He looked up, and up, and up, to see a tall Afro-Yemeni with a shiny jambiya blade hanging from the middle of his belt, his thobe’s hem just above his ankles, standing in front of him, arm’s crossed.

“Are you the man I am to meet?” he asked in Yemeni Arabic.

Alex set his tupperware to the side and stood, brushing his hands on his pants before holding out his hand to shake. The man took it, grip firm and palm laced with callouses.

“My name’s Alex, I’m here from the Habemus Tempus Institute. We received a copy of your recent project proposal to --”

“USAID. It was rejected six months ago.”

Alex nodded, gesturing to the wall. The man sat, crossing his legs at the ankle, observing Alex as he lowered himself to seating again, his leg making the process a little more difficult after the walk.

“Are you alright?”

Alex gave a wry smile and carefully hiked the edge of his pantleg up, letting the prosthetic gleam in the morning light: “Some things are harder than they were before.”

The man nodded: “That is true for many people.”

He paused, looking Alex over. Alex let him, meeting his gaze. After letting the cool quiet of the morning settle around them, Alex asked: “Could you tell me about your project?”

The man closed his eyes, a look of pain flitting across them. Alex leaned closer.

“It was a mobile news network. I think, in the future, people are going to use their mobiles for everything.” He reached into the slit in his thobe with his right hand, pulling out a battered Nokia and thumbing it on. “Already, this is how I hear about the rains coming from my sister in the villages, the price of flour from one market to another from my brother, how my father’s gout is treating him from my mother. As soon as the first shipment hit the docks, I had bought a dozen. I ate rice for a month, but what a small price to pay to know those you love are safe, and a bit more about the world.”

He tapped it, showing Alex his call sheet.

“Do you have one of these?” he asked. 

Alex nodded, keeping his iPhone in his pocket.

The man kept going: “You get charged when the other person picks up, but when I’m picking up my imam to take him to his home village to visit his family, I just send him a missed call,” he pointed to a particular call log, “and he knows to come out to my car.”

He pressed the rubbery buttons, pulling up the chat option. “And here, they charge us more to text in Arabic, so people have developed a transliterated Arabic using English characters, since phones with Arabic keyboards are hard to come by. Sort of like the Japanese have Romaji.” At Alex’s look, the man smiled. “I manage a warehouse at the docks; a lot of Japanese ships still come through here on their way to Suez, so I picked up a bit of the language from some textbooks they left behind.”

“Impressive,” Alex said, and the man narrowed his eyes, evaluating whether Alex was being patronizing. Alex kept his genuine admiration in his eyes long enough for the man to see it, before saying: “It’s one of the things that can make Arabic hard -- not to learn, it’s a beautiful language and the grammar makes so much more sense than English -- but there’s no standard transliteration for anything.” He gestured to the blade at the man’s waist. “Jambiya, right?”

The man nodded. Very similar short, curved blades were common traditional weapons most men in tribal areas wore in many places in the Gulf and as far north as Iraq, but they were called khanjars in Oman and xencers in Kurdistan. “‘Jambiya,’” Alex repeated. “But, in English, it’s also spelled ‘janbiya,’ ‘jambia,’ ‘jambya,’ or ‘janbia.’” He shook his head. “It’s just one more point of friction that keeps people from learning about the region.”

“But you see,” the man said, grinning, “with a mobile news network, with a way for people to get reliable information about weather and war, family and food, the things people need to know about. We would decide on our own transliterated norms, use those to keep the mobile rates down; and once we had enough customers, we could pressure TeleYemen into offering the same rates for texting in English as Arabic.” 

He sighed, turning the phone over in his hand. “I wanted to create a program, selling mobile phones with Arabic keyboards in the tribal areas. Women are the ones who keep the most accurate information in the towns, so I would hire women to sell them to women. I applied for start-up capital -- the business would be self-sustaining, but I would need to buy a large quantity of the phones to get the bulk rate I need to make the math work out. And I just can’t get that kind of capital together; and it’s not like the World Bank makes business loans to warehouse managers in Aden.”

Alex unzipped his backpack, using his right hand to pull out one of the 10 identical stacks of bills, carefully wrapped in brown paper and taped shut.

“That’s how I can help,” he said.

The man frowned, setting his phone in his lap and taking the surprisingly light package. “What is it?”

“A grant.” Alex said.

“How much?”

“One million US.”

The man nearly dropped it. “I -- I only applied for $10,000.”

Alex nodded; that had been in the briefing. “We have ways of tracking to make sure you spend this all on your project, but we thought you would know what to do with this.”

“I --” the man paused. “This is a grant, not a loan?”

“Yes.”

“And what are the conditions?”

“Help your country.”

\--

The man left a few minutes later, glancing back at Alex as he worked his way across the stone bridges dividing the cisterns, confusion obvious in his eyes.

He’d just taken another bite of the cake when a woman all in black approached him, eyes wide behind her niqab.

“How did you send me a postcard with no stamp?” she asked in quick, hard Arabic.

“One of my volunteers dropped it off.”

“How did you know where I lived?”

“You applied for a grant.”

He could see from how the muscles around her eyes moved she was clenching her jaw. “The World Bank turned me down.”

“I know,” Alex said evenly. Most Yemeni women wore colorful scarves and when times were peaceful as they were now, very few covered their faces; war made everyone more conservative. Only one of the women he was meeting today wore a face veil: “You proposed to Arwa and Asma Academy.”

“Yes.”

“We’d like to fund it. I’m from the Habemus Tempus Institute. The World Bank forwarded your application and we found it had merit.”

“It does. It will save thousands of girl’s lives. It could save our whole country. I don’t know why I was rejected.”

Alex had a guess; the World Bank grant stream she’d applied into preferred to give money to people with the kinds of backgrounds and hobbies of the grant reviewers, who’d gone to schools whose names they recognized, whose names they could pronounce in their grant review meetings. Dr Tawakkol bint Qadir bint Daghr didn’t play golf, she hadn’t gone to Oxbridge, and she wasn’t named Susan Smith. She was just an incredible teacher, principal, community leader and advocate who’d fought her way free of a child marriage and had a realistic plan to educate the next generation of the Gulf’s leaders. To make Yemen like a Switzerland in the Middle East -- small and prosperous and someplace no elites wanted to bomb because it's where they went to school. It had made something sour settle in Alex’s stomach when he’d read she’d been rejected by people who looked a lot more like him then her.

“We have accepted your application.”

She took a step back, shaking her head. “I have never applied to you. I don’t know you.”

“Like the note said, you will never see me again. There are no strings attached to this grant.” He reached into his bag, pulling out the block of cash. “This is the full grant amount. Now, no waiting. Take it and found the schools. Take it to Taiz, the ancient seat of learning, like you said you would; use the funding model you proposed, recruiting one wealthy Saudi girl from Riyad or Doha for every low income girl from Mocha or Khab, so their tuition pays for both; use the social plan you provided, ensuring mixed income roommates, mixed nationalities, mixed faiths; hire the women teachers, doctors, custodians, counselors, coaches so every single day, every student sees her gender reflected in those who she trusts; start the university you dreamed of in the abandoned keep of the thousand year old castle at the summit of Jabal Haraz in the Sarat range; then bring the exchange students you dreamed of bringing, to showcase how brilliant women are all over the world when given the chance.” 

He took a breath; she’d taken a step closer, eyes softening at the passion in his voice. “And maybe the next ruler of Saudi Arabia will be a woman, one of your students, and raise women up in the region like a rising continent; if not, maybe the daughters of the Defense Minister will fight back, will stop their father from bombing Yemen if a war comes; if not, maybe the women you educate will be able to use their language skills, international contacts, and bravery to end a war quickly; if not, maybe your students will be the doctors who cure pandemics, who heal the sick, who grow the crops to stop famines, to repair the cisterns; if not, maybe they will live freer lives than they would have before you found them, lives where their minds and bodies are free in a way they would not have.” He took a breath. “All of these are things you believed you could do; things we believe you can do.” He jiggled the money a little. “My arm is getting tired, please take the cash.”

She reached out, snatching it quickly without touching his hand. He let his hand drift down to his side.

“You’ll never be able to see it,” she said. “No men will be allowed on the campus. Not ever.”

He paused, then figured why not ask. “You’re a gynecologist, what about those girls who are born with mixed parts? Or girls whose families raised them as boys?”

She huffed, wrapping her hands tightly around the money: “A girl is a person who says she is a girl. I won’t be checking parts. Parts aren’t what make women women. Women know we are women,” she pressed her hand to her chest, “ _inside_.”

He paused, taking a slower pace to this question. “And to those who are not girls, but not boys; like hijra people in India; some people use the term non-binary.” 

She took a breath, thinking it through; then she said: “Then they are at even more risk than girls, to be different from men without the protection of women. They would be welcome at my Academy too.” She nodded to herself. “Yes. Of course.”

“Thank you.” Alex said.

“You still cannot come.”

“I know,” Alex said, voice light. “Legacy is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”

“Hmm.” She said. Then she took a breath: “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

\--

The day went on, Alex following the shade around the cisterns as the sun arced across the cloudless sky and the water in the cisterns warmed, birds flying down from the mountains to sip and bathe. 

The third person was a man who wanted to revive the craft of dhow building; dhow were traditional cedar boats that lasted for generations and had been used for centuries across the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. They vastly outlasted the chapter fiberglass boats and left no pollutive debris as they aged and were repaired. The work of building them provided employment for families, long-lasting and efficient transport in the rough waters along the coast of Yemen, and would renew trade ties between Yemen and Lebanon as he intended to purchase the traditional Lebanese cedar for his boatbuilding workshop. He intended to teach the traditional technique which used no nails and only wood fastenings to visiting Westerners; Alex had met a lot of military men who liked to imagine themselves boatbuilders, and could easily see them dropping a few grands to spend a week on a beach in Yemen using hand tools to help build a dhow.

The fourth and fifth were two sisters who wanted to renew and refurbish every dam and cistern in Yemen, starting with the Marib Dam and working their way through the Cisterns of Tawila. The population was much larger than it had been when the complex water system had served all of its people’s needs, but it was also much more sustainable than drilling wells or the expensive desalination plants Qatar and Israel relied on.

The sixth man was a linguist who shared his lunch with Alex. He who wanted to found an institute to preserve indigenous small Semitic languages of the Arabian Peninsula, like dialects of Hebrew spoken for centuries by Yemenite Jewish people, as well as Minaean, Sabaean, Qahtanian, Hadramautic, Bathari, Mehri, Harsusi, Hobyót, Soqotri, and Shehri, also known as the Language of the Birds. Alex suggested he also include the two-dozen rare indegenous Semitic languages of East Africa; he was delighted. He and Alex spoke for a long time about lacunae, language gaps: like how there’s no good word for “wadi” in most other languages; or how English speakers call a child without parents an orphan but have no word for a parent who has lost their children; or how there’s no word in Arabic to represent the relationship between a mother and a mother-in-law, but there is a word in Hindi; or how there was no word for “arm” in Japanese. He believed that the more languages that survived into the 21st century, the better chance humanity would have to have the words it needed to understand itself. So preserving these small languages in his own region was his contribution.

The seventh man wanted to conduct a campaign against qat, the lightly narcotic chewing leaf that stained many Yemeni men’s teeth and led to many a pleasant afternoon zoned out on pillows. Alex had always privately equated qat to the pipe-weed hobbits smoked socially, but the man made a good case that helping men connect with each other outside of inebriation would help increase their participation in family rearing and society as a whole; Alex figured the man knew better than he did.

The eight person to come was a woman who wanted to start an Institute for the Protection of Biodiversity, headquartered on the big island in Yemen’s Socotra Archipelago where 94% of the plant and animal species on the island were endemic to it -- from the dragon’s blood trees to legless lizards and sunbirds -- meaning that the only place in the world where they could be found. She planned to charge hefty fees to Western universities seeking to run study abroad programs and practicums and conferences there, mixing the allures of white sand beaches and year-round sun with the real scientific wonder of the island. Alex suspected the Time Agency was more interested in the potential of her project to ensure an income stream for the island’s 50,000 residents that would keep the UAE from using food aid as a foothold and pretext to military occupation, as they had done in his timeline.

The ninth and tenth were an older couple, dressed in western formal business dress, brown volcanic dust on their black loafers and pumps respectively. Touching between genders in public was rude in most places in Yemen, but if you’d spent long enough in the region, you could see how married people orbited each other, giving and taking space as their shared property, speaking in low and quiet voices no one else could overhear. They sat beside Alex, man acting as a buffer between Alex and the woman. The sun was setting golden and scarlet behind the black arcing spikes of the caldera, the dust in the air making it glow lambent and soft around them.

“We’ve been watching you,” the woman said. “All day.” Her hair was short, curling and black and she wore a bright scarf around her shoulders.

The man picked up her rhythm easily, black tie tight against his throat: “You’ve met with men from every region of Yemen.”

“Women too.”

Alex nodded, keeping his posture relaxed and easy as they spoke to the open air in front of them.

After a moment, she said: “We’ve seen you hand out packages -- money, yes?”

“Yes.”

The man asked: “All the same size, all the same amounts?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Alex had thought about that: “Each of the people, including you two, who were selected by the Habemus Tempus Institute today had two things in common. Your ideas will help the Yemeni people -- and you talked about your failures in your grant applications. Those are spaces where most candidates only sing songs of praise for their own worthiness and brilliance; as they should, since that’s what grant monitors want to hear. So only someone with a lot of integrity, a lot of humility, and a lot of self-awareness would go against the norm and insist on including how their failures had impacted their life’s work. Family lost for lack of a phone, children left in harm’s way, livestock dying of thirst, languages dead, friends lost to drugs, ecological heritage clearcut for firewood.” He took a breath. “And you two -- you wrote about diplomacy and how many chances for peace had died for lack of cross-cultural understanding.”

She nodded.

“Madam Ambassador, Mister Ambassador, I know what you asked the UN for 22 years ago. I’ve read the proposal. I only wish I’d been able to come sooner.”

“How could you?” the former Yemeni Ambassador to Sweden asked, her voice low and hard. “You would have been my great granddaughter’s age.”

Alex nodded. “But someone like me.”

The older man, the former Yemeni Ambassador to France, said: “So you have a brick of American money for us too?”

“I do.”

The woman’s voice was sharp: “Does it come wrapped with a note to never fly a drone above our country, killing our citizens from the sky again as you did to Qaid Salem Sinan al-Harethi 3 months past? Or will our children begin to fear cloudless days like the children of Iraq do? Does it come with a video of your President Bush promising to stop arming and training the armies of Saudi Arabia’s powermad princelings? Or are you just hoping the schools and cisterns and institutes you’re funding can somehow be hardened against Hellfire missiles?”

Alex took a deep breath, leaning forward to look her in the eyes: “I don’t have the power to convince my government to stop killing in our name.” He set his jaw: “In my name. For what it’s worth, Qaid Salem Sinan al-Harethi helped plan the USS Cole bombing, the attack on the Limburg that crushed tanker traffic into the Port of Aden. He was a leader of Al-Qaeda --” she began to interrupt and he stopped.

“And he could have been held accountable in a court of law! We have jails here, Mr American. We have courts.”

Alex nodded and she gave him space to speak: “Yemen’s justice system is 10 times older than the United States’, at least. I know. But that is why I am excited about your project. Because the people you’re hoping to train in diplomacy, those Americans and UK citizens and Germans and French people whom you hope to bring to Yemen as exchange students. The Yemenis you hope to send out into the world as exchange students. _They_ might be able to find a way to stop the drone attacks _and_ the terrorist attacks that kill far more Yemenis than Americans. They might be able to find a way to solve the conflicts of the world non-violently. Through diplomacy. Like you said in your proposal.”

It had been one of Alex’s favorite proposals in the bunch: establishing what was essentially a Fulbright program international exchange program in Yemen and establishing an institute of diplomacy to provide post-graduate education to those who returned from their exchanges. It would help build-up international understanding, relationships, and build a professional diplomatic corps so Yemen could one day send Ambassadors to more than a few dozen countries, could build relationships and find solutions to the problems they faced that others had overcome.

He kept his voice low in the growing twilight, their eyes reflecting back the last of the sunset: “I do this job because I want less war in the world. I believe my country has harmed people and helped people, and I want to undo as much harm as I can while using our power and wealth to help. That’s why I’m here.”

He took a breath and unzipped the bag, pulling out his last two large stacks of cash.

“I know you know what to do with this better than I do. Please: build your exchange program. Found your institute. And look-up the Arwa and Asma Academy; in a few years, they may be producing exactly the kinds of students you want and need.”

The ambassador took the stacks of money, settling them in his wife’s purse.

“Do you know where you’re staying tonight?”

Alex nodded, though he did not. The older man’s eyes crinkled: “May we drive you? We also saw your injury, and these stones can be uneven in the darkness.”

Alex nodded, figuring every major city had some kind of Hilton. “I’m staying at the Hilton.”

As she stood, the ambassador made a small noise of disgust: “So boring. At least let us feed you; you can’t survive on chocolate cake and shared shawarma forever.”

Alex laughed a little: “I would appreciate that.”

Now the money had changed hands and she’d made her point, the ambassadors were full of good stories and charm, and Alex spent a warm evening in their home compound; they eventually convinced him to take one of the many guest rooms, and he went to sleep listening to the quiet music of the fountain in the courtyard and the music of the desert winds running their dry fingers through the flowering Arabian jasmine. 

When he awoke the next morning before dawn, he took a moment, stretching out between crisp, white sheets, to trace the curves of the moulding around the inside of the ceiling. To let his eyes wander across the bookcases, the shelves of knick knacks from his hosts’ time abroad. To reach his hand up and feel the thick, shined wood of the four poster bed, generations of hands having gripped it in playtime or lust, he couldn’t tell. The rich smell of the freshly turned earth of the garden filtered through the air and he knew his hostess was taking advantage of the pre-prayer coolness of the day to get her gardening in. He took a breath and resolved to ask if he could have a sprig of the jasmine to take home to Michael.

He arose and dressed carefully in the same clothes he’d worn the day before, having told his hosts he had an early flight to catch. Their driver took him down to the airport and he thanked the man before slipping into a side alley with just enough time to take one full, deep breath before the tendrils of the timestream looped their way around his chest and he was being sucked back into its blue aura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: a special thank you to the lovely folks at the Roswell 18+ Discord for crowd-sourcing the brand of fancy face masks Kyle Valenti would horde in his office minifridge.
> 
> I am 100% obsessed with the 10th century female rulers of Yemen mentioned in this piece here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arwa_al-Sulayhi and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asma_bint_Shihab.  
> \- Check out more about minor Semitic languages here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages.  
> \- If the mention of Yemeni Hebrew got you intrigued, you’re going to lose your marbles when you read about the Jewish kings of Yemen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhu_Nuwas  
> \- Check out info about Socotra Island here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socotra -- god, the Dragon’s Blood trees alone are enough a reason to set an entire fantasy epic *just on that island*  
> \- The female ambassador to Sweden is based off of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amat_Al_Alim_Alsoswa.  
> \- And here’s a lovely video of the Arabian jasmine harvest in Yemen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKuuhkPgT8A  
> \- And last but never least, here is more on the incredible Nobel Peace Prize winner from Yemen who I mentioned here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawakkol_Karman


	39. feels good, inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, way back in the day of lemons and limes, some people would tag for blasphemy. I have no idea if folks want or need that, but we’re earning more of our rating in this chapter and the boys: they will blaspheme.

Before Alex had even left the timestream, he could hear a low, rhythmic thumping. He felt hot, close air on his face and could hear -- singing.

 _Michael_.

Alex opened his eyes in a tiny blue laundry room, Michael perched on top of a dryer as it kicked up a racket in what smelled like the dry New Mexico summer heat, eyes closed tight, headphones in, barefoot and curls flying as he rocked out to Vance Joy:

> _“Bring me to your house_ _  
> __Tell me, ‘Sorry for the mess,”_ _  
> __hey, I don't mind_ _  
> __You're talking in your sleep,_ _  
> __out of time_ _  
> __Well, you still make sense to me,_  
>  your mess is mine”

Alex pulled himself up out of his crouch, eyes tracing over Michael’s bare chest, down to where his jeans were riding low on his hips, the top button popped open, his grin getting wider, his eyes still closed. He stepping into the space between Michael’s knees, pulling the sprig of jasmine from his pants’ pocket. Slow as breathing, he settled a hand on Michael’s knee.

Michael’s eyes shot open and at close range, Alex got to see every expression in those whiskeyshine eyes: surprise and joy; a flick up and down his body; lust and excitement. Michael yanked his headphones out, tossing them to the side and hooking his ankles behind Alex’s ass, pulling him in. Alex followed, willingly, tucking the jasmine behind Michael’s ear and running his fingers through his curls as Michael catted into the motion, breath kicking up.

“ _Alex_ ,” he said, voice breathy. “God, _Alex._ ”

And then he was kissing him, Michael exploring his mouth like it was something to be treasured, Alex’s hands cupping his face, thumbs light on his stumble, trying to draw in every sensation, ever scent, every motion and sound.

Michael pulled him in tighter, until Alex’s thighs were flush against the rocking dryer, body vibrating with it.

“Hey,” Alex said when Michael pulled back to breathe.

“Hey,” Michael replied with a grin. “Was that ok? We usually talk first --”

Alex tugged gently on his curls, pulling him in for another kiss, telling him with his body how very ok it was. He was about to pull back when Michael made a little sound, a little hurt sound, and Alex’s fingers cupped the tender back of his head, forehead pressed to his, breath hot and close between them.

“I’m here, I’m here.”

He heard Michael gulp, trying to control his breathing. “Yeah, yeah, _I know_ \-- I just -- I missed you, Alex. I missed you so much, I just wish --”

And then he leaned in, cheek sliding alongside Alex’s, hands sliding under his arms to grip his shoulders until his lips were soft against his ear. “I just wish you could stay. It’s June 2017 and I just -- please stay. Please.”

And Alex’s heart cracked, just a little, in the moment before Michael pulled himself together, shaking his head at himself. “I don’t mean that. I don’t want to mess with the timeline. We can do it, we can go another 15 months, I know we can. I just --”

Alex looked down at the device in his chest, glow just having faded.

His words were slow: “I could. We could get this out of my chest, take the time watch off. You’re a surgeon, I’m sure you could get this thing out of me without stopping my heart.”

And Michael’s face fractured, hurt and fear flitting across it. “I never want to leave you,” Alex confessed. “Not now, not in Pittsburgh, not in Libya. Never.” He let that sit in the hot air between them. He didn’t want to quantify it. Didn’t want to qualify it. He wanted Michael to know, to know _in his bones_ that this was something on offer. Freely. Without restraint or fear.

He watched Michael think about it, fingers drifting down to unbutton the top of his henley, slipping it open until the swirling colors of the device were visible, fingertips drifting lightly across its hard surface so all Alex could feel was the pressure against his sternum. He looked for a long breath; two; three. Alex watched his face; watched him think.

“No.” Michael said, lifting his fingers up to Alex’s chin, tilting his chin up so he was looking Michael in the eye. “No. I want to finish this story; finish it in order, the way we started it. I want to be there when we’re on the same page.” He took a hard breath, like he was confirming for himself that he meant the words he’d just said. His face grew hard even as his fingers stayed soft on Alex’s skin: “I want to get you free of your Dad, free and clear, if that’s what you want.”

Alex blanched, feeling his eyes go wide, his body feeling jittery: “I don’t know how to do that.”

Michael’s quirked half a smile and brushed Alex’s hair behind his ear. “You’re gonna have help. I promise, Alex. You’re not alone.”

“I saw Max, back in my timeline.” Alex held up a hand. “I won’t tell you what we talked about, but -- “ he paused, trying to think how he wanted to say this. “I’m glad to have you all as a family.”

Michael’s smile bloomed across his face, leaning in to press a kiss to Alex’s forehead. “I’ve got you.”

Alex pushed down on the urge to giggle, but at such close range, Michael could see it.

“What?”

“Oh,” Alex said, flushing. “I said that, the last time we --” and he gestured between them.

“I remember,” Michael said, grin upping its heat to something more like a leer. “That phrase, it does it for you?”

Alex could feel the heat in his cheeks but he said: “Yeah. Between us -- yeah. It --” he took a breath. “It means we’re _here_. We’re _here_ for each other, our bodies are here, as whole as they’re gonna be, able to touch and be touched. Present.”

Michael traced a kiss over his eyebrow, then to other, lips grazing Alex’s nose before pressing against his. And he opened, easily, softly, to Michael’s questioning lick. He opened and Michael moved against him, fingers trailing up and down the short hairs at the nape of his neck, dipping under his collar before sweeping up his carotid artery, thumb light over his windpipe. Alex could feel his body singing with the touch, and was for a moment intensely grateful he’d have the chance to calm it down without having to strip in front of his coworkers.

He thought about their options, with what felt like 12 minutes remaining to them.

He paused, pulling back, murmuring: “Hey, I understand if you don’t want to --”

He opened his eyes to see Michael frowning a little, lips red and parted: “‘Don’t want to?’” His voice was soft, eyes a little unfocused; Alex felt the same.

“We could, here. I’m here for,” he checked his watch, 722 seconds. “722 more seconds. If you’re up for it, I’d love to get my mouth on you.”

Michael let out a gut-punched sound. “‘If I’m up for it,’” he echoed, voice a little lost. “Alex, I am up for _that_ at nearly every second of every day and have been since I was 22.” He spread his hands out to the side, and Alex missed their warmth but loved the mischievous smile on Michael’s face as he did jazz hands. “Have at me, ghost of mine.”

Alex laughed, tracing his knuckles up Michael’s sides, his own chuckle turning dark as he watched the skin of his stomach jump. He did it again, thumbs moving in parallel along his abs, watching Michael struggle to breathe evenly. 

He glanced up into his eyes: “Do you like to be touched, here?” he asked, resting his thumbs under his pecs. Michael nodded with a gasp. Alex moved his thumbs across his nipples, not able to resist crushing his mouth to Michael’s and drinking down the groan he made.

“God, Alex, yes,” as Alex increased the pressure.

“Good,” Alex murmured, “that’s really good.” He slid his hands down to Michael’s hips, the jeans barely hanging on. “You want these on or off?”

“God, Alex, I --” he took a breath. “Off. You’re less likely to catch a zipper to the chin that way.”

Alex grinned, pressing a kiss to his lips. “How about you get them off for me then, love?”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Michael said as he yanked his zipper down and shucked himself out of his pants and briefs faster than Alex thought he could have done it, even before he had a prosthetic to get in the way. 

“Is that comfortable?” Alex asked, gesturing at the top of the rocking dryer as Michael kicked his pants with deadly aim directly into a wicker hamper.

Now free of his pants, Michael reeled him back in with his ankles, Alex gripping his hips.

“You’re here. We’re touching. This is probably the easiest room in the house to clean.”

“We’re in your house?” Alex said, momentarily distracted, scanning his eyes around for clues as to where he was; but there were no windows in the room, and apart from the New Mexican summer smell, they could have been anywhere.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “I’m doing some repairs between tenants; you caught me before I head out next week.”

Alex leaned in, gracing his lips against Michael’s: “Lucky me.” 

Michael sucked in a breath: “Yeah,” and let it out with a shudder as Alex smoothed his thumbs over the soft skin of his hipbones.

Alex leaned in, pressing a kiss to the side of Michael’s throat: “Lucky me I get to kiss you,” and Michael tipped his head all the way back as the jasmine fell from his curls onto the drier lid, giving him all the access he needed, bracing a hand behind himself to keep his balance.

“Lucky me, I get to taste you,” Alex said, licking a strip across Michael’s collarbone; he was vibrating from the dryer but also from some impossible inner tension; Alex could feel it too.

“Lucky me, I get to see you,” he murmured, lips against Michael’s stomach, dick inches below his chin, still untouched. “See you all laid out for me,” and Michael groaned, cock jerking as he tightened his thighs, letting his heels slide up Alex’s back as he bent lower.

“Lucky me, I get to be with you, to have you, to be had by you.” Alex looked up, mouth hovering above the head of Michael’s cock, meeting Michael’s sex-drowned eyes. “Lucky I’m yours and you’re mine.”

“Yeah,” Michael gutted out and then Alex took him down in one long swallow, letting his mouth and throat flex around him, focusing on the way his hand rested soft on his shoulder, his forearm braced on the rumbling dryer.

He could feel it, other experiences he’d had, with this act, rumbling at his gates; but everything about this was different. The laundry room, the smell of a home he was just starting to know, a man he loved, the soft touch against his skin; Alex had never done this in this way, and his mind let him have it, let him have Michael, without throwing the ghosts of his past across his path like bodies to be cleared from a field before fresh crops can be planted.

He wrapped a hand around his base, lips brushing against his own thumb, moving up and down, setting a steady, predictable rhythm, other arm braced on Michael’s thigh for balance. He savored the taste, the sweat and musk, the way Michael kept his hips in perfect check until Alex urged him forward with a tug and Michael slung a heavy thigh onto his shoulder, bracing against him to arch up into his mouth. 

“I’m,” Michael said, voice too loud, “Oh, Alex, I’m close --”

Alex pulled off for a second, voice fucked out: “Come when you need to, love. When it feels good,”

“Oh _God_ ,” Michael said and Alex wrapped his lips around his head, fingers tight, one stroke, then two, then three and -- he tasted the surge of precome and felt a _thrill_ , an absolute burst of satisfaction that he could make Michael feel _this good_ \-- and then Michael was coming, body shaking out of rhythm with the dryer, Alex’s hand flying up to his thigh to keep him from sliding off it entirely as he rode out his pleasure, as he rocked and writhed and Alex filled up every spare space he had in his mind with the groans and taste of him, with the shape and shake of him.

Alex pulled off before he could get oversensitive and gently lowered Michael’s thigh off his shoulder; Michael tugged him closer, banding his arms around his chest and breathing hot and uneven into his neck as he shook his way down.

When he’d cooled down enough that his breathing was regular, Michael pulled back with a grin: “You’re awesome at that,”

Alex blushed; he could feel it, hot and bright on his cheeks.

“And you _blush!”_ Michael said with delight, whispering a finger across his high cheekbone. “A man who can do that and still blushes. Where did I get so lucky as to have you in my life?”

Alex buried his face in Michael’s bare shoulder and Michael patted his back, pressing a kiss to his ear.

After a few long breaths, he asked: “How are we doing for time?”

Alex peered down to where his hands were splayed across Michael’s back: “323 seconds.”

“Go us,” Michael said, burying his face in Alex’s hair and taking a shaky breath. “I’d give you the grand tour, but I’m pretty sure I can’t walk.”

“I’m here for you; and I figure I’ll get to see it next year or in a few days.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, and Alex could feel the smile, his lips moving in his hair. “Yeah.”

Michael’s hands moved over his back, tugging his henley up and pressing against his spine.

“I don’t think we have time to me too --” Alex said and Michael hummed.

“No, we don’t; but I just want to feel you.”

“Ok,” Alex said, leaning in impossibly closer to him, cataloguing every brush of every callous, every pattern and shape. 

“I meant to ask,” Michael said, “What’s with the flower?” And Alex watched as Michael floated the jasmine from behind him on the dryer lid, now slowing its noise as it ended its spin cycle. He hovered it between them, turning it on its axis. From the laundry basket came a towel, draping itself over Michael’s lap and helping Alex focus.

“Oh,” Alex said, watching the sprig turn, “I was in Yemen. 2003. Getting interrogated about the US drone program by a pair of ambassadors.”

“Drones in Yemen?”

And Alex felt himself grin. 

“Is there no war in Yemen now? No famine, no cholera?”

Michael shook his head, closing his eyes as he thought through the timestreams. He swallowed: “There was the Arab Spring, and there was some violence, but they held elections. But there’s something else, someplace else I remember hearing about drones,” he frowned a little, then blinked his eyes wide open.

“Alex.” He said, voice soft and disbelieving. “When I was 12, the first time around, I remember protesting the war in Afghanistan with Marie and Jared. And now,” he frowned again. “When did the war end?”

And this -- this was the thing he could never talk about. Not with Kyle, not with Flint, not with his father. They didn’t _remember_. Even if the briefings told them, they didn’t _remember_ the bodies coming home to Dover AFB, they didn’t _remember_ the towns destroyed, the hostages, the villagers unable to know if planes above them were dropping food aid or munitions; _they_ had never walked through Kabul in springtime and wondered if that Honda would be the last thing they ever saw, if that man walking towards him would explode and take their lives with his.

“In my first year as a Time Agent, I was focused on unwinding the war in Afghanistan. They thought it might take my entire career, but in the end, it only took a dozen missions. The inciting incident -- 9/11 -- I wasn’t able to stop that,” and he couldn’t keep the self-recriminations out of his voice. “But I was able to get close enough, to kill enough of their bombers, they found they weren’t safe in Afghanistan so they upped stakes and went to hide in Turkmenistan. It’s a lot softer target, so taking out Usama bin Ladin was the work of a single drone on a night in late September 2001, not a decade and hundreds of thousands of lives and an impossible war.”

“You stopped the war in Afghanistan.”

Alex blinked. “Congress and our South Asian regional partners asked the Time Agency to; hundreds of people worked for years to make the plans that let us unwind it. It’s -- it’s not good there. Parts of the country are still controlled by former Taliban; but they’ve had elections. Women can vote. That was part of the deal with Iran and India and Pakistan, for the missions I did for each of them; they would all fund the work in Afghanistan that needed doing.”

“You stopped the war in Afghanistan.”

Alex frowned at the repetition: “It was my job.”

Michael’s hands rose slowly, fingers gentle on his face as he looked in his eyes. “We’re going to work on you being able to take credit for the good stuff you do, Alex. I know you count each and every failure twice, but you need to count the good stuff at least once.”

Alex swallowed, unable to look away: “I saw a counselor a few days ago; I can tell her that’s something I want to work on.”

Michael’s eyes crinkled as he smiled: “I’m so fucking proud of you, Alex. So fucking proud. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Alex’s watch began to beep and he backed up, not sure he could get 6 full feet away in the tiny room.

“I’m going to kiss you and then step out this door to give you your room, ok?”

Alex sketched out a nod, breathing slowing, watching as Michael lowered himself off the dryer and pressed a kiss to his forehead: “See you next year.”

Then he opened the wooden door to the rest of the house; Alex saw an Adobe white hallway and the corner of a small kiva stove before he snapped his eyes back to Michael’s. He stood, with his back to the wall, watching Alex as the arms of the timestream wrapped around him, blue, purple and orange.

Alex held his eyes as long as he could before the timestream pulled him away.


	40. away from me that takes you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a description of surgery in this, if anyone doesn’t like medical situations. Let me know if you need to know where to jump from and to.
> 
> Buckle-up friends, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Alex opened his eyes in the time chamber to a sea of Yemeni faces — kids and teens and adults and grandparents. Women with pixie cuts and turbans and colorful scarves and full niqabs; men in business suits and thobes and wearing their jambiyas out and proud. Alex’s pants were baggy enough they were hiding the evidence of his body’s reaction to Michael, but he still held his OK symbol up quickly and was grateful for how swiftly the lab techs set the screens up.

Once he was safe inside of the relative privacy, he took a deep breath of the chilled air. He didn’t traditionally have a problem with errant erections. It was only in the last month his body had started to feel good enough to warrant them outside of a specifically sexual situation. But he had fallback from his teens: he started conjugating verbs in Arabic. I love; you (singular female) love; you (singular male) love; she loves; he loves; we love; you (two women) love; you (two men) love; they (more than 2 women) love; they (more than 2 men) love. 

But every single conjugation only brought images of Michael, and how much he loved him.

 _Not particularly effective_ , Alex glared down at himself.

Conjugating “to do” brought the same caliber of thoughts, but with the edge of Michael’s smirk.

Alex finally settled on “to swim”, since he didn’t have any sexual thoughts associated with that; it plus the chilly air did the trick.

He could hear the murmur of voices rising by the time he was done, but he was confident he wouldn’t embarrass himself once he could change into his civvies.

“Ready!” He called out and held his breath as the swirling mist surrounded him.

He got dressed, a little delicate with himself as he tucked into his new jeans, smirking to himself at the memory of Michael’s speed shuck of his own pants. He tried to suppress his goofy smile, but he couldn’t seem to get it off his face; the mission, the dinner with the ambassadors, the time with Michael: it was a _damn_ good day.

He strode down the ramp and was immediately dragged into a conversation with two excited young women about their experiences in the Diplomacy Institute; it took Flint reminding the group three times to head to the reception room for the cluster around him to break up enough for them all to move to the main room. Alex lasted an hour before he caught Kyle’s eye from across the room — the doctor looked like he was in deep conversation with a group of professional women, their hands held behind their backs as they swayed and nodded and argued.

Alex jerked his head to the side and Kyle made his excuses; one of the women passing something into the doctor’s hands carefully before letting him leave.

Once they were in Kyle’s office, Kyle handed over the envelope.

“One of the dignitaries handed this to me to give you to.” 

Alex flipped it open: it was a photograph of a group of over a hundred women wearing white lab-coats over their traditional Yemeni cultural dress, grinning with their fingers raised in the peace symbol in front of a facade that read “The Arwa and Asma Academy.” 

He flipped the photo over. 

Scrawled on the back in slanted Arabic it said: “Planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.” 

—

Alex checked out fine, taking a quick blood test before Kyle sent him out. When he stepped into the midday New Mexico sunlight, he felt it warm on his face, and let his entire grin blossom. He was just so excited to see Michael soon.

He pulled out his phone, texting Rosa:

> **Alex** : Hey, can you go clothes shopping with me?
> 
> **Rosa** : YES. Fucking finally, YES.

Alex grinned down at his screen.

> **Rosa** : What’s the occasion?”
> 
> **Alex** : I get to see Michael in a few days :D
> 
> **Rosa** : Dawww
> 
> **Rosa** : You ok to go now? I’ve got an evening shift, so I’ve got a few hours right now.

Alex checked his calendar; nothing today. His next therapy appointment wasn’t for another few days.

> **Alex** : sure
> 
> **Rosa** : Great, meet me at the Goodwill in downtown

—

“The thing is, you _have_ the money to buy new clothes,” Rosa said, tugging a black leather bomber jacket off a mismatched plastic hanger before slipping it onto her shoulders. “But if you buy stuff from Goodwill, you know it’ll survive being washed, you aren’t stuck with whatever weirdness there is in this season’s fashion since you’ve got 20 years or more of fashion trends to pick from, and it’s all like under $10.” She plucked at a gold lamé turtle neck on the rack, muttering “I can’t believe this is still here.”

“Hmm,” Alex said, rubbing a red and pink flannel shirt between his fingers. He thought about how to phrase it. “How do you decide?”

“Decide what?” Rosa asked, pulling a pair of boots off from the top of the rack, lining the heel up with her heel to see if they were roughly the right size. She snorted in disgust and plopped them back on top.

“What to wear?”

She gave him a look, like he had to be shitting her. He kept his gaze steady, not letting his discomfort show. Then a look of horror moved across her face. “Is this your first time buying your own clothes?”

Alex frowned, and then nodded a little, glancing down at where his hands were holding onto the sleeve of a blue collared shirt a little too tightly.

“Shit, sorry, Alex, I didn’t mean to ask it that way. It’s — it’s really cool you’re inviting me to help out. Ok,” she said, She bumped her shoulder against his, arm going around his waist. “Ok,” she repeated, “so, basic fashion theory. Wear what you want, what you like, and what’s appropriate for your goals. For example,” she pulled out a soft-looking grey henley from the rack behind them. “This says: touch me.” She hunted for a moment, pulling out a leather jacket with large spikes on the shoulders. “This says: don’t touch me.”

“I’m looking for, like, dating clothes. For going on dates.”

“So, something comfortable; if you go hiking or to the drive-in or a museum, you want to be able to move and not have to worry about squeezing yourself into and out of it.”

Alex nodded. “Is there something — about season colors? Like, being a winter or a spring?” He was vaguely recalling something he’d overheard one of the wives of one of the Colonel’s friends had mentioned; but it was fuzzy.

Rosa tilted her head, “That’s one way to do it. You look good in reds and whites, dark blues and browns. Not really strong purples or greens, they’ll make you look kinda sick.”

“Pink?” 

“If you like it, then sure. And if you find a royal purple Hawaiian shirt that makes you feel amazing, then for the low, low price of $3.89 you can have it. Worst comes to worst, you don’t like it and drop it back off here.”

“Hmm,” Alex said. “You want to help me pick out some shirts and pants and jackets?”

“I’ll give you advice, but I’m going to make you pick them out yourself, Alejandro. I’m not here to be your seeing-eye femme.”

He snickered and they spent a silly half an hour looking through the racks before Alex went back into the dressing room to try on some of the combinations. The first was a deep red henley, material soft and textured beneath his fingers. He tried it on with dark jeans and a wide, hand tooled brown leather belt. The hassle of trying on different pairs without removing his prosthetic taking longer than he’d liked. But Rosa didn’t rush him.

A few minutes later, he was standing, looking at himself in the mirror. He tilted his head, then ruffled his hair a little. The military haircut was designed to not permit a lot of self-expression, but he was a week late for his regular haircut and it looked — soft. Touchable.

 _Good_.

“I think I found one,” he called. 

Rosa called back: “Awesome! Come on out and strut your stuff.”

He opened the creaky door to see Rosa’s smiling face. She gave him a once-over and then two thumbs up.

“Got it in one! Let’s see the next one.”

Alex ended-up buying 5 new shirts and 3 new pairs of jeans, plus a soft sweater that went a little past his hips. He suspected it was originally a women’s sweater, but it was massive and fluffy and he could imagine holding Michael as he leaned against his chest, the sweater keeping them both warm.

—

Alex headed to the grocery store to buy what he needed for the group dinner that night — Max, Kyle, Liz and Rosa were all planning to come by. It turned out Kyle had been keeping the group from gathering in his apartment lest Max let something slip, but now Alex was nearly on the same page as Michael’s family, that barrier seemed to be down. They were happy to talk about anything and everything — except Michael.

Waiting in line with a shopping cart full of fresh produce and poultry, he felt his work phone buzz. It was a text from Flint:

> **Flint** : New mission briefing, for tomorrow, Friday, September 20th.

Alex sucked in a breath; he hadn’t known his next mission would be tomorrow. He was 82% thrilled he’d get to see Michael so soon, and 18% irritated he didn’t have more control over his schedule.

> **Alex** : Copy.

He opened the briefing. The top-line of the cover page had a bright red, underlined message:

“NB: Dr Valenti is not on the distribution list for this briefing for reasons that will become clear; do not communicate about this mission with him.”

Alex set his jaw; he didn’t know why Kyle shouldn’t know where he was going. He would have to see for himself if he wanted to let that stand or push back.

The checkout line was long, long enough for him to scan through the briefing.

> **Uniform** : full tac uniform, mask and goggles. No weapons. 
> 
> **Purpose** : Dropping off a medical device and a newly developed healing formula to a Time Agent.
> 
> **Target Date** : July 2008

He frowned; he couldn’t remember having crossed paths with another Time Agent in 2008. 

> **Location** : Roswell, NM
> 
> **Time Conflicts** : Dr Kyle Valenti. Dr Valenti was present at the surgery during his Freshman summer internship with the R&D department. Per agency protocol and his documented preferences, he cannot be involved in the prep or debrief for this mission.

Alex scrolled up to the top of the briefing, confused. He hadn’t known Kyle had had an internship at the Time Agency in undergrad, but it made sense; most 3-letter agencies started recruiting future professionals when they were undergrads, and with the relationship Michelle had mentioned her ex-husband had had with the Colonel, it wasn’t unusual for the son of a friend to get an early internship. 

The timing was what was confusing him. With so few Time Aware people, there were only a few surgeries a year, all conducted in the Time Agency’s operating theaters in the underground R&D wing; the last time Alex was there was when he’d come back with his leg blown off. He’d made a real point of not needing surgery after that experience, if he had any possibly control over it. He didn’t like being put under, didn’t like being tied down, didn’t like the antiseptic smell of it. He remembered that he’d been the first surgery that year; he couldn’t remember the date he’d gotten his device in. Maybe they’d had another agent right after him?

“Sir?”

Alex startled and scanned around — but it was the older woman at the register, trying to get him to stop holding up the line. He forced a smile and rolled his cart forward.

—

Kyle wandered into the kitchen as Alex was fluffing the jollof rice and keeping an eye on the chicken browning in the pan. The olive tree had six little curling leaves; Alex was trying watering from the bottom to encourage roots, so it was sitting in a tray on the counter, making a muddy mess and making him grin every time he glanced over at it.

“I’m not going to need to chug yoghurt to get through this, right?” Kyle said, eyeing the range of peppers Alex had picked up for the west African rice dish. “I think I still have chemical burns on my tongue from last time.”

Alex rolled his eyes, turning to pull the tabouleh out of the fridge where the finely diced cucumbers, parsley, mint, onions and tomatoes had been marinating in their lemon juice and olive oil dressing since he’d gotten home.

“No, it’s a Sierra Leonian version. Much milder than the Nigerian version.”

Kyle muttered: “It would have to be, you used two Scotch Bonnets in that one?”

Alex made a face to himself and started to plate the bright red rice.

“So, how’d the rest of the mission go?”

Alex cut a look over to him. “What part?”

“The Michael part.”

Alex busied himself over the spitting chicken on the stove. He kept his voice low: “It was good. I got to see his laundry room.”

Alex glanced over and Kyle’s eyes were wide and excited: “So you know where he lives now — oh, Rosa’s gonna be —“

Alex shook his head: “No, I only saw the laundry room.”

Kyle frowned. “In 16 minutes, you only saw one room?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, refusing to acknowledge the blush rising in his cheeks.

“What could you possibly have done in a _laundry room_ for 16 minutes — “

Alex gave him a look.

“Oh.” He started to flush and then held out his hands for a serving platter, eyes averted.

Alex handed him the tabouleh and started plating the chicken on the jollof rice.

—

Alex arrived in the time chamber early the next morning to find his tac uniform, mirrored goggles, black mask, tac knife, and a carrying case laid out on a folding table. Patrice Shapiro was standing beside it as lab techs hovered around.

As he joined her at the table, she muttered: “Don’t get blood on it.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

She narrowed her eyes, then, having decided he wasn’t sassing her, nodded and stomped out of the lab.

Alex turned to the hardsided silver carrying case where it was open on the table. It had a large vial of orange-ish liquid, a syringe filled with the same, and a version of his time device. The device had a thumb-sized mechanical component with a dozen snaking strands of thinly jointed tubes coiled neatly under it, shimmering lightly. He hovered his fingers over it, unsure if the box was meant to stay sterile. The white-blue-purple-orange light of the timestream flickered over its surface; it has some of the iridescence of Michael’s handprints. _The new alien tech_.

The mission was simple: he was to deliver this case to the surgeons at Roswell. Why it had to be him and not one of the other agents who’d been in Roswell in 2008, he had no idea. The briefing hadn’t even told him who the device was _for_.

“Be careful with that one,” Marcie said in a low voice, pointing to the syringe and the vial. “It’s only shelf-stable for 3 hours.”

“From the new tech R&D got a few weeks ago?”

She glanced up at him, and then away. “It’s experimental. You know the old joke about lipstick that hasn’t been tested on animals?”

Alex shook his head, a little confused.

Marcie put in a fake grin: “'Never tested on animals -- you’ll be the first!'”

Then she closed her eyes, shaking her head at herself. “I shouldn’t joke. It’s not funny. I wish we had an Internal Review Board for human testing. It just all feels so,” and she wrapped her arm around her stomach, “gross.”

Alex spoke quietly: “Maybe we can fix it; we fix things everyday here.”

She glanced over at him and then away. “Yeah, maybe.”

\--

Alex opened his eyes in the windowless poured-cement hallways that made-up the R&D wing of the Time Agency, beneath the building proper. Lit by bare fluorescent tubes and as featureless as a prison walk, the hallway was deserted. Alex had his mask and goggles on, the silver case gripped tight in his gloved hand.

He’d forgotten how much these goggles were like blinders, forcing him to only see what was put directly in his path. He stood, not waiting for the light of the timstream to fade back and strode towards the locked double metal doors at the end, painted a battered blue and creatively stenciled with white letters “R&D” the size of his torso. _Exactly as I remember it._

Alex knocked on the door, the clanging making his teeth clench. He wanted this mission to be over with. He wanted to see Michael again. His skin anched for him in a way he’d never felt before.

He tried to pack that soft, tender feeling back into a box; but it refused to go. He was grateful for the mask, because he was absolutely certain his impatience and general itchiness would have been showing when the older white man with floppy bone-white hair opened the door to his second knock.

“Ah, Agent, we were told to expect your delivery. Come, come, he’s in the operating theater now.”

Alex frowned but followed the man, his own heavy boots tapped gently on the polished concrete, hiding all sound of the scientist’s swish blue loafers. He looked around the room -- it was a large lab, stainless steel tables, Bunsen burners, sinks, storage cabinets; one entire wall was taken-up with a two-way mirror, currently turned off but Alex bet it would look into the small operating theater he remembered from his time here.

There was a teenager standing at the window beside a desk overflowing with paperwork, labcoat over his button-up shirt and khakis; _Kyle_ , Alex realized. He’d known from the briefing he would be here, but seeing him in the Time Agency at 18 was something entirely different.

When the teenager turned to see the scientist approaching, Alex watched his eyes flare in fear at Alex’s costume, eyes searching behind his reflective goggles for a sign of humanity. Alex gave none; the teenager’s face was still unformed; he hadn’t grown into his cheekbones or shoulders or height yet, but Alex could see where all the parts would come together. Kyle held his ground, even as Alex approached behind the scientist, silent and nameless.

“Is that for the patient?” He asked, and Alex remembered this had been his summer internship, that he was here to learn about medicine. 

Alex wondered what else he was going to learn about this day.

“Yes, yes, of course, of course, Mr Valenti, you can carry that into the operating theater.”

“Sure, Dr Hawley.” 

Dr Hawley tugged the case out of Alex’s hands and handed it to Kyle, who went around to a side door and disappeared into the theater.

As soon as the door closed, he whispered: “I need you to sign a consent form.” 

Alex frowned. “Why?”

Dr Hawley narrowed his eyes. “The young man in there has already been prepped for surgery and will be out in a few minutes; but your delivery means the procedure has changed and I need an updated consent form before I can complete it.”

Alex cocked his head: “I don’t understand, why would I be able to sign for him? I’m not anyone’s guardian.”

Dr Hawley looked at him like he was a complete idiot and began to mutter to himself as he searched the desk: “Did they not include who the patient was in your brief? Does the Time Agency really _still_ play these kinds of games? I would have thought your brother would be in charge at this point, or they would finally have taken this place out of Manes men’s control.”

Alex felt like freezer coolant had been piped into his veins. He realized: “It’s me -- it’s me in there?”

The doctor nodded, irritation coming off of him in waves as he searched one of the desk drawers for a pen.

“Obviously. Why else would they have you deliver it?”

“I --” and Alex hunched over to look down at the form the man had thrust into his hands, trying to read it in the flickering fluorescent light.

“Come on, come on, we haven’t got all day,” the man said, stepping too close.

And Alex paused, took a breath, and stood up straight. He let the form fall to his side.

“What is the new procedure?”

“We haven’t got time for this!”

Alex kept his voice calm and cool. “I would like to know what you are planning on doing on me in there.”

The man grunted in annoyance, but after another long moment, caved: “This is your time device implantation surgery. We had planned on implanting the original model, the one last redesigned in the 1980s,” he flicked at the time device in Alex’s chest, “before Caulfield was expeditiously closed. What a loss that was.” He took a hissing breath: “We got word a few days ago to expect a delivery, a newly updated device. They wouldn’t tell us from when, but my lab sure as shit didn’t develop it, we can scarcely _understand_ this stuff much less reinvent it from scratch.”

“What are the differences?”

The man scratched his white hair, movements jittery. “Same time travel capabilities, but increased resilience. Again, I don’t have the technical staff to reverse-engineer it from the schematics we got last week, but it should have less danger of causing heart attacks.”

“There’s -- there’s a danger of heart attacks?” Alex asked, voice stuttering.

The man frowned: “It’s the leading cause of death for Time Agents; do they teach you _nothing_ about what they put in your own body?”

Alex shook his head. “And -- and the vial? What’s in that liquid?”

“It’s another new invention. It’s supposed to promote healing from within, to make the medspray less needed in minor cases and more effective.”

Alex swallowed: “Are there -- are there any known side effects?”

“‘Known’ -- what do you think this is, the FDA? It’s experimental tech,” the man leaned in and tapped Alex’s time device as Alex jerked back: “It’s _all_ experimental tech. That’s what you signed up for, when you became a Time Agent.” His smile was twisted. “Now, are you ready to sign or are you going to keep playing Daddy to your 18-year-old self?”

 _Somebody should_ , Alex thought mutinously. But even though this particular scientist could take a long walk off a short pier for all he cared for his bedside manner, unless he wanted to jailbreak his 18-year-old self out of this hellish existence -- and he thought about it for a long moment. Thought about taking him away. Thought about how, even if he caused an avulsion here, _he_ would still remember that decade. It reminded him of what he’d told Kyle about Hebron: _I don’t know how to forget._

And he’d still remember, but he’d go back to a timeline where he’d never been in the same timeline as Michael, never getting the chance to do all the good he’d done, or fix the Time Agency to stop this from ever happening again to another kid. He would never have signed this if it was anyone else’s life; but it was his. His choice, even if he was making it a decade after he should have had the chance. He swallowed and said:

“I want to be present for the surgery and to make sure he’s ok when he wakes.”

“You can't possibly _talk_ to him -- I can’t even list the number of regulations that fucks with,” the scientist said but Alex shook his head.

“I can keep him company for the rest of my mission.”

“My briefing said housing had been arranged for you in the barracks,” the man jerked his thumb at the blank mirrored wall, “ _his_ bed, as I recall.”

Alex thought about that bed, Flint’s heavy metal sleep deprivation torture, and shook his head _no_. “I’ll stay here, thank you.”

“Fine, fine, sign so we can get a move-on. It’s a long surgery.”

Alex took a breath and let it settle. Thought about freedom and choices. 

He signed the form.

The doctor sighed, snapping the paper away from him just as Kyle came back out of the operating theater.

“He’s pretty scared, Doctor Hawley. I don’t think he’s comfortable being sedated.”

“Well, he’d better get used to it. Kyle, you can stay here and observe. Get the Time Agent a chair and then leave him alone, he’s had a long journey and he doesn’t need to chit-chat with the interns.”

Kyle flicked worried eyes over to Alex, face filling with teenaged resentment, but he left to get a chair.

Dr Hawley stabbed his finger into a red button beside the two-way mirror, allowing Alex to see into the operating room, before stalking to his office to file the paperwork.

The room behind the glass was bare concrete, brightly lit for surgery. A young shirtless man sitting in scrubs a few sizes too big, bare feet hanging off the edge of the table. He was sitting up, stubbornly it seemed. His eyes were hazed with anesthetic, huge as a doe’s, gaze darting around the room before staring into the mirror. 

_He knows we’re watching him; knows he’s being observed._ His pupils were dilated and his toes on both feet curling in and out. Alex remembered doing that; it was a way he could get tension out without anyone seeing, as long as his feet were tucked safe away in his boots. It looked like he was too drugged out to stop himself. He swayed back, catching himself on his hand. The nurse -- fully scrubbed in -- laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, trying to ease him back. He rolled his shoulder under his hand, jerkily yanking himself away.

“He doesn’t want to be there,” Kyle said from behind him, voice hurting. “He doesn’t want this.”

Alex looked over, seeing heartbreak on the teenager’s face. He didn’t know what to say; he had no memory of the details of this day. Arriving at the Time Agency, signing paperwork under his father’s watchful eye, being given the anesthetic, awaking alone and in pain, mind wild with fear at the changes he felt in his body as his muscles and veins and cells adjusted to the presence of alien technology just beside his heart. Impressions; pictures; all of them reasons he kept away from this lab any chance he had.

Kyle turned to him: “Where’s his Dad? Shouldn’t his Dad be with him, or Sara?” Then his face closed off; “Nevermind, I know why Sara can’t come. You probably don’t even know who I’m talking about, but the kid in there, he’s the son of someone my Mom’s friends with. She’s really pissed I got this internship, but I don’t know how else to help but by joining groups and trying to make them better.”

He sighed, rubbing his wispy stubble. “Maybe the only way to fix things is with our hands, one person at a time. I’m not --” he paused, glancing back to make sure Dr Hawley wasn’t returning yet.

Alex watched the teenager in the surgery room sway backwards again, catching himself that much more unsteadily against the paper liner on the operating table. “I used to be so jealous of him. I’m not Time Aware; I’ll never make the kind of change he makes, or,” and he gestured to Alex, “that you probably make. But I want to heal. I want to fix things, to help people fix themselves.”

He rubbed his hands over his face, so much younger than it had been when Alex saw him last. “I just have to decide if I can stand this, if I can stand to work someplace that does something like _this_ to another kid. Where I might be the one in there, operating on a patient who’s that scared; I know he signed the consent forms, but how much choice does he really have? Could I stand to do that to him, and if I did, what responsibility would I have to him, for the rest of my life? As someone who took his choice away?”

Alex nodded, trying to keep his voice from carrying: “It’s a big ethical question.”

Kyle nodded, eyes wide: “It is! And everyone seems to think it’s simple. My Dad, he thinks it’s simple one way: the Time Agency shortens wars. They’re good. My Mom and Sara, they think it’s simple the other way: the Time Agency is bad, they chew people up and spit them out.”

Kyle ran his hands through his hair. “So, this summer, I’m deciding. Which is right, which is wrong. It’s only my second week, and the thing is -- I’m starting to think it’s wrong. Or, they’re both wrong. It’s -- this place is a tool. Like the internet or an airplane or a car or the military or a knife,” he gestured to the one sheathed at Alex’s hip. “You can use them to help people, to build things, to make things better, or to kill people. It’s a tool directed by those in charge.” He looked at Alex again, eyes still searching for connection behind his mirrored goggles. “And maybe the best way to fix it is to work here long enough to be in charge. Maybe that’s the only way to ensure a tool is used for good.”

“What did I say about bothering the Time Agent? Mr Valenti, how in God’s green earth do you expect to become a surgeon if you cannot follow basic direction?”

“Sorry, Dr Hawley.” Kyle said, turning his face back to the operating theater.

The teenager in the operating room was back on his elbows, body finally succumbing to the anaesthetic. His eyes were mostly closed, but his face was struggling, biting his lips, turning his head back and forth. Kyle looked away, but Alex kept watching, kept looking until the barely-adult was pulled all the way under, face and body going slack against the paper linens. The nurse and Dr Hawley strapped him in, cleaning his chest, and beginning to operate.

First, they injected the syringe and the second vial of fluid. They gave it 10 minutes; when there were no negative changes to his heart, blood pressure or other vitals, the nurse pulled out a tray of silver instruments.

Kyle looked up partway through, following the cutting of the skin, the breaking of the rib cage, the insertion of the every tendril of the device.

Alex watched every second of it.

All he could think was: _I will never let this happen again._

\--

After the 15 hour surgery was over, the young man’s body stitched up and resting in clean scrubs, Dr Hawley giving an exhausted Kyle a ride home. The nurse stayed a little bit longer, eyeing Alex over her mask; but eventually she, too, left, making sure to tell him the operating theater was wired, monitored by the security staff. 

Once Alex heard the massive metal doors clang shut, he was up and stalking into the room.

The kid looked even worse in-person than through the glass. His brown skin had grey undertones, his eyes moving restlessly under the bruised-looking thin skin of his lids. The device was a colorful swirl, skin stitched around it, tendrils of light pulsing down through his chest. Alex knew, when he hopped back to his own timeline, his own device would look like this one. Whatever changes that serum in the syringe had made to his body 10 years ago would impact him as soon as he arrived. He slipped his gloves off, shoving them into his pocket. Pulling up a stool, he reached down, slipping one of the teenager’s hands into his.

“Hey, Alex,” he said, voice quiet. “You’re not going to hear this and you’re not going to remember me saying it, but I need to. For me. You deserve so much better. You can light the world, make it brighter, without setting yourself on fire. You’ll learn this, eventually. You’re not alone. You’re so, so loved. And you just need to survive, ok, love? Survive.”

He leaned down, brushing a kiss against his clammy forehead, whispering: “Help is coming.”

He thought about saying more, about acceptance and policy, about safety and sleep, about companionship and community; about touch and loneliness; about care. But instead, he let the clock tick down, let it simmer between them, the thoughts, the hopes, the fears -- and the reality that this boy had 10 more years to survive but Alex was going to do everything he could to make his life the kind he would have given this teenager in front of him. That he wished he’d had. That his friends, his _family_ , had taught him to want, had taught him to build and grow for his very own.

He let go of his hand as his watch reached 30 seconds.

He looked down at him, voice quiet: “Last bit of advice: the safer and happier you feel in your daily life, the less it hurts to go into the timestream. It won’t always feel like you’re bracing for a kick to the chest. Just -- hold on, ok?”

He swallowed, voice cracking: “I love you.”

Then he backed up, putting his back against the poured concrete wall, and breathed deep, letting the rush of the timestream flow over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Jollof rice is amazing and I love it and it *is* possible to give yourself chemical burns not only on your tongue but on your hands by making it with the wrong kinds of peppers. Source: me, Thanksgiving 2018. Here’s a recipe: https://www.westafricacooks.com/africa/jollof-rice-sierra-leone-recipe


	41. behind my back

Alex opened his eyes in a sunwarmed bedroom. He pulled off his goggles and mask, dropping them on the Mescalero Apache rug on the floor. He looked out the big window over the unmade bed. There was a small garden, a tall wall of sabra -- prickly-pear cacti -- with a violently green palo verde tree shading an arroyito. In the middle, a carefully restored wooden table and chairs. Alex looked up: above the window was a handmade shelf with an Altoid box; well-loved copies of _Ender’s Game_ and _Ender’s Shadow_ ; a carved wooden map of the intertwining Blue Nile and White Nile; a hand of Fatima; a cluster of olive pits; a cedar box with a bi pride pin and a Stitch pin sitting just in front of it; propped against it was a small tile with the skyline of Gaza; on top of a folded, well-washed shirt there were coins from the Philippines, India, and Europe scattered beneath it; leaning against the wall was a framed piece of black and red embroidery, a little oil pastel of an impossibly blue sky, with a dried sprig of jasmine just under it. Carefully framed and hung on either side of the window were Genevieve’s handwritten copy of the “My Mother” poem in Arabic with Alex’s translation on the other side. On the bed, a red Omani saddle blanket twisted amongst the white sheets. 

Alex shook his head as he heard Michael’s voice from the other room; _I can’t believe Rosa tricked me into doing Michael’s gardening for him._

He turned to the bedroom door, Michael’s voice getting louder:

“Give the phone to the Colonel, _NOW_ Flint --”

Alex felt a shudder, his heart racing to realize what his mind couldn’t catch yet. He tried the handle -- it was locked. His tac knife was in his hands before he could think, popping the bolts off of their hinges. It took more force than it should have, but when he pushed he broke through. Michael couldn’t be more than 10 feet away _on the other side of this damned door_.

He was kneeling to force the second set of bolts when he heard: “This is Dr Michael Truman, Nora Truman’s son. I’m offering myself in exchange for Captain Manes’s life. I have new Antaran tech I can bring, plus my willing service to the Time Agency for as long as you need me. My only other condition is the Colonel resign as head of the Time Agency, effective immediately.”

“ _No!_ ” Alex yelled and he felt the door shudder against his hands as he took out the last bolt, like Michael was holding it closed with his powers. Alex shoved, shoved again, and as he moved to kick it in it fell, crashing against the hallway wall. Michael was slipping his cellphone into his pocket, turning to see Alex, a look of such painful relief on his face Alex lost his breath.

“It worked,” Michael whispered. “Oh, thank God.”

“ _No_ ,” Alex gasped, knife falling to the floor. “Michael _no_ \--”

“They’ll be here in 10 minutes,” Michael said, striding towards Alex. “It’ll be ok.”

“ _No_ ,” Alex said, shaking his head even as Michael wrapped his arms around him. His body responded, reaching out to grab, to hold onto Michael as hard as he could. “Michael, you have to _go_ , you have to _get out of here_ \--”

Michael’s curls brushed against his neck: “I can’t do that, love. They’ll kill you. They _were_ killing you _,_ I _felt it_.”

Alex shuddered, entire body shaking, his hands grasping at Michael’s shoulders. “They’ll hurt you, please, please don’t do this for me.”

Michael pulled back, hands going to Alex’s face. “I came all this way for you and I’m not going to let them take you from me.”

Alex felt his face crumple: “Michael, please, please, no --”

Michael pressed his forehead against Alex’s. “I’ll survive. They need me alive. I have tech they need and I’m the only one who knows how it works.”

“I just delivered it,” Alex realized, voice dazed and wrecked. “It was September 20th, 2018 and I just brought new tech back to be used on my 18-year-old self. If I’d known you’d been the one to engineer it, I would have been a lot less worried.”

Michael gave him a watery smile, so close Alex had to lean in and kiss it, face wet: “So trusting. Wonderful, now I have a hard deadline,” 

Alex pleased: “I don’t want this, I don’t want you --” his eyes got wide. “R&D. They’re going to have you working with the Colonel. Michael, you can’t, he’s a _monster_ \--”

“You’re going to have to come save me, then,” Michael whispered, drifting his fingers behind Alex’s ear, tucking the hair back; then repeating the gesture just to feel his touch. “Here I thought it was my turn to save you, the relationships and the house and the money for grad school and everything.” He gave a broken laugh. “But I guess not.”

Alex felt the tears shoving up out of his throat; he forced them down again. He had to make Michael _see_ : “It can’t be like this. _I won’t let it_. You have to call him back, tell him you changed your mind. They’ll have let me go by now, Kyle has me safe. You don’t have to go with them, Michael. You can just leave, go someplace else --”

Michael was shaking his head, a heartbroken smile. “And what if they try again on the next mission? What if they really kill you this time, Alex? I didn’t wait 20 years to feel you die.”

“What about me, Michael? It hasn’t been 20 years but it’s been the most important time of my entire life. _My entire life_. I don’t want,” his voice shattered: “I don’t want to lose you, now I’m so close to having you again.”

Michael pressed a kiss to his lips, all tenderness and care. “You won’t, love. You won’t lose me.” He took a breath, arms still so tight around Alex he could feel every breath pressing against their strength. “Here’s the plan. You go back, get to your time, then come here. In the cedar puzzle box, there’s letters. Read those first. I -- “ he took a hard breath. “I thought I’d have time to write you more, but there’s things in there I need you to read. Need you to know. Then: I’ve got some stuff in the closet that can help you break me out of the Time Agency. The guns you left in Maria’s truck at the funeral, the hand grenade from Sierra Leone -- I know I said I’d disable it, but aren’t you glad I didn’t?”

Alex wasn’t sure if he was shaking his head or if his whole body was wracking itself apart.

Michael kept going: “You’ve got Kyle and Liz and Maria and Rosa and Max and Isobel and my Mom. You’ve got everyone you’ve ever helped. Alex, you’re _not alone_. I _know_ you’ll come save me. That’s why I could make this trade.”

Alex could barely breathe, forcing himself to whisper: “I don’t want you to go.”

“Oh.” Michael said, burying his face in Alex’s neck with a little hurt sound. “Oh, love. I don’t want to go either. God, no. I never want to be where you aren’t. But I need you safe. One last mission, one last time; I know you can do it.”

Alex couldn’t think, couldn’t _imagine_ \-- he had an idea. “Mark me,” Alex said, pulling back, yanking off his time watch and holding the thin skin of his wrist up between them. “Mark me so that when I get back, I can feel what’s going on and you can feel me too. So you know when I'm back. That I’m coming for you.”

Michael chuckled a little, one hand unwinding from Alex’s waist to press his thumb over the thin skin where the Antares cluster would burn bright under UV light. “It’s been a while since I was in a play, I don’t think I have any greasepaint to cover it.”

“ _I don’t care_ ,” Alex said, every moment listening for the growl of Flint’s Land Rover down the winding drive. “I won’t go another day without feeling you.”

“Stubborn,” Michael said, kissing him once, hard, before raising Alex’s wrist to his lips, eyes never leaving Alex’s as he pressed a kiss to his pulse point, tongue very briefly glowing the same gentle orange Alex remembered from the loft in Pittsburgh. He felt the heat of it move across his skin along with the slickness, pulsing and tap-tapity-tapping around his veins, into his arteries. Michael sighed, feeling the connection flare warm and real between them, an unbreakable bridge, a bond. He lowered his wrist, murmuring: “There you go, one wrist, 1 day younger than the rest of you.”

Alex flinched into Michael when he heard a truck’s engine roaring towards them down the drive, Michael’s arms wrapping around him tight again.

“Don’t go, love,” Alex heard himself say. “Please.”

“It’ll be ok,” Michael said, but Alex could hear the fear in his voice. “It’ll be ok. I love you.”

Alex whispered into the side of his neck: “I love you too.”

They gripped each other tighter at the sound of shouting voices, watching as a team of tac suited and heavily armed men sprinted through the garden, Michael yanking himself away from Alex at the sound of the door crashing in, hitting his knees with his fingers laced behind his head before Flint could get into the bedroom. Alex tried to charge forward but he was caught, unable to move; Michael’s powers wrapping warm and tight around him, his eyes never leaving Alex’s.

Alex struggled against Michael’s hold, unable to stop himself, unable to stop Flint as he kicked Michael to the ground, forcing his hands high behind his back, putting the thumb zip-ties on him even though he wasn’t resisting. One of his men stabbed a syringe into his neck, Michael jerking with the pain of it.

Michael’s voice was muffled by the rug when he said: “Remember the bag from Sara Shanta’s funeral.”

Flint yanked him up, cuffing him across the face and splitting his lip. “What the _fuck_ did you say about my mother?” 

Alex shoved so hard he almost felt something give, some part of Michael nearly failing to stop him, whatever was in the syringe sapping his powers down. Michael craned his neck to look at Flint, a bloody-toothed grin moving across his face. “Oh, _fuck_ you. My ghost is going to kill you for that.”

“Your _what_?” Flint’s eyes flicked around the room, skittering off of Alex.

Michael just shook his head. He met Alex’s eyes one last time, before Flint and his men dragged him out of the bedroom.

“Come and get me, ghost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are life!


	42. I write you

Alex landed in the time chamber, body so tight he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to breathe normally ever again. Then he felt the soft, comforting pulse of Michael’s emotions, the warm tide of them loosening something in his shoulders enough he could catch one full breath before the world closed in again. 

He looked up: it was just a few lab techs there; Kyle was still banned from this mission because of time conflicts.

He kept his wrist tight to his side as an unfamiliar doctor confirmed through the glass that he was alright. The gas flooded into the chamber, swirling around him like he was in the eye of a hurricane. He made sure to tuck his hands into his pockets once he’d changed into his civvies.

Once he was out, he texted Rosa:

> **Alex** : Where is Michael’s spare key?  
>  **Rosa** : on a ribbon around the olive tree, Alex --

He put his phone on airplane mode before her ellipses could turn into words. He knew it wasn’t reasonable, wasn’t fair, to be so furious with her and Kyle and everyone else that he couldn’t think clearly. He knew he was this furious because he was terrified for Michael, and because Flint wasn’t here to scream at, to force into showing him where he was keeping Michael. _Alive, alive, he has to be alive, I can_ _feel_ _he’s alive._

Alex wasn’t feeling reasonable right now. His friends had, _on your insistence you idiot_ , hidden from him that Michael was a _prisoner_ , a _captive_ _under his father’s control_.

He’d thought Michael was off on a trip, that maybe something had happened between them, and that’s why he hadn’t seen him yet. Not that he could have _died_ , and Alex would never have _known_.

No, Alex wasn’t feeling reasonable at all.

Alex rode his bike to Michael’s place, his mark like a gentle pulse on his wrist -- _I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive_ \-- the afternoon sun sweeping golden across the sage-scented desert. Gravel scattered as he swung into park at the end of Michael’s long driveway. He went around to the side, where two 10-year-olive trees were shading the side of the house, heavy with unpicked fruit. And there it shone, a slim brass key hung by a yellow ribbon around the thickest branch. He almost choked when he read “Alex and Michael’s Home” stamped into the back of it. But he kept himself breathing, kept himself moving.

The living room was exactly as he’d pictured it -- the warm grey couch, the Mescalero Apache and Diné rugs, the art, the kiva stove in the corner. He moved to the bedroom, the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window, saw the poetry, the box, the souvenirs, the books. He brushed his hand across the red slash of the Omani saddle blanket, and then knelt beside the bed, pressing his face to the sheets. Even after four weeks, they still smelled like Michael. He let out a sob, feeling like his chest was cracking open --

And then he forced himself up onto the bed, carefully kneeling to reach the cedar box on the shelf above the window. He unslipped the thin shim so the puzzle sagged open, opening it with gentle fingers to find a pile of handwritten letters.

They were written in Michael’s scratchy handwriting; Alex sat on the bed, bundling the red saddle blanket bundled into his lap, fingers sliding over the way the fine black pen had dug into the cream paper.

\--

> Friday, August 3rd, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I know today is the first day that you’re meeting me and I -- oh. It doesn’t make sense to be nervous but I’m -- I guess I’m scared for you. For what your life was like, before we met. Kyle texted to tell me you just left for the mission. 
> 
> A few months ago, I told him -- some of what is between us. What I am; not what Iz or Max are, because that’s their business and not mine. He and I have been friends for a few years, reconnected after Sara’s funeral; similar jobs, similar families, so it’s been a nice, casual thing. Also a good chance to get to know more about the Time Agency, not that he let much slip.
> 
> Liz has managed to keep Max’s heritage a secret from Kyle, God knows how. Kyle works so many hours, he probably just hasn’t had a chance to pry. I told him -- enough to know that I know you, know about the Time Agency and your shitty dad and shitty brother. That you’re going to start appearing in my life. That he should be ready to help you if he can. I think he believed me; Isobel and Max trust him, for all he works at the Time Agency. I hope you stay safe.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Friday, August 3rd, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> God, I just saw you at the Pony and I don’t think I’m gonna hurt your feelings when I tell you -- love, you looked _rough_ . Like, I vaguely remember what you looked like the night we first met, but that was, ah, a hard night for me. So I don’t entirely remember all of it (or much from that placement). But seeing you through my adult eyes -- you look so _tired_. So worn and scared. God, I could zip-tie your father and brother to a 100 lbs of cinderblocks and drop them in the Gulf for what they did to you.
> 
> But at least you’ve got Kyle for now, and it looks like you met Maria. She’s awesome.
> 
> I was playing pool all night after dropping off Maria’s sign -- she needed it fixed so the pony actually bucked how it’s supposed to and I have a bit of time on my hands. I took this semester off from teaching, so I’d be here for you. 
> 
> I headed over to the Pony after Kyle texted to say you two were on your way. You had no idea who I was, obviously, but God. God, Alex. It hurt to see you and it was also the best thing that’s happened to me all year. It looks like you two had a good chat? I’m going to text Kyle once he’s home, see if he’ll tell me what’s up.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Friday, August 3rd, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle wouldn’t tell me what you talked about; he’s such a goody-two-shoes sometimes. But it’s good, it’ll be good, you having someone to talk to who won’t violate your confidence. Do you think he noticed you didn’t drink at all? Is that a thing for you, not liking to drink? Or was it because you’d never been in the Pony before? I asked Maria about you and she said she’d never seen you before. Where have they been keeping you all this time?
> 
> I can’t wait to hold you.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Saturday, August 4th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Rosa called to say Kyle called her, all freaked out about something and he wouldn’t say what, except had something to do with a favor I asked of him. If I had to guess, he just got the first look into what your life has been like. Even third hand, it sounds fucking awful. 
> 
> I don’t think you’ve met Rosa yet? She practically lived with Sara in high school in the summers, planning anti-war protests and generally stirring up shit. You’re going to fucking love her.
> 
> God, I can’t wait for you to get out.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Sunday, August 5th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I spent the day crashing at Rosa’s place; it’s 3pm and I know you’re going on your mission to Sarajevo. I hope you stay safe. Also, I hope you can read this. Rosa did my nails in bi pride flag colors and it’s smudging everywhere.
> 
> Love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Monday, August 6th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I miss you a lot. I knew you would be on a mission early this morning and so I went over, to -- I don't know. See Kyle? See if I could get him to tell me how you were doing? I hadn’t slept, I was up all night reading about Sarajevo and Admira Ismić and Boško Brkić and the Vrbanja bridge, deep-diving into Wikipedia about it all, and just -- ugh. It seemed like a good idea at the time to try to come by. Probably not my finest hour. Kyle told me to knock it off and learn some boundaries. Once I left, I texted to apologize and he made a point of telling me it was really important I respect your space and also that the Colonel might be watching the apartment so I needed to stay away.
> 
> God. Fuck that man. Not Kyle, the Colonel.
> 
> I love you and I know you’ll be safe.
> 
> Yours always,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Tuesday, August 7th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Ok, that last one was an emo letter. I’m hoping you read these all at once, all in one go, so you get the good and the bad and the great and the horny and the joyful all at once.
> 
> I hear you went to your first amusement park today! God, that’s so awesome. I hope you liked the Rattler; it was my and Sara’s favorite, and we got Jared and Marie to come one time but they Hated It. Said they’d been in one crash and never intended to be in another.
> 
> They like the cotton candy ok though.
> 
> Love, as soon as we’re back on the same page, we’re going to do _all_ of the dating things. Roller coaster and carnival games and drive-in movies and hiking and kitschy museums and just -- I just can’t wait.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Wednesday, August 8th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> That day in Doha was still the best of my life. God, the way you looked when I first came up to you -- my heart nearly crashed out of my chest. God, I love you so much.
> 
> And your first tattoo! Oh, I’ve been trying to figure out where I’ll kiss you first when I get you alone and back to my place, and legit, it might be over that tattoo. I’ll take your time watch off, then just -- feel the place where you’ve been carrying that bit of me all these weeks.
> 
> I love you.
> 
> Michael
> 
> PS: Kyle came by my place while you were on mission to make sure I was ok and give me one of the magnets with the photos from the Rattler; it put it on my shelf next to the cedar box. We’re going to see each other so soon. I love you.
> 
> \--
> 
> Thursday, August 9th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> This probably sounds weird, but I wore those snake pajamas for like a month after you left. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Friday, August 10th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> So you know when you’re talking to someone and you can tell they’ve been through an avulsion but they can’t sense it? It doesn’t quite match-up? That’s Kyle about the trip you and he took to see Marie and Jared. Like, you two obviously went. And I’m betting, in the first time through, you went to Caulfield. And the current timeline, you didn’t. Kyle was telling me about their house on the rez, but that’s not how it went for you; Kyle’s only remembering the new timeline, the one where you razed Caulfield to the ground in 1992. God, English is not well structured for discussing time travel; you’re gonna love Antaran. So many temporal clauses, it’s so exact and specific. Also genderless, which I think you’ll get a kick out of.
> 
> It’s kind of lonely, right? Being the only one that remembers these things?
> 
> But we can remember together.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Saturday, August 11th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Ok, I know it’s silly, but I’m legit excited for this mission for you. It’s a huge deal, making sure the east African supply of malaria pills isn’t disrupted. And also, it’s the first time you ever got to bring back something, something small, something to remember the place you’d just been. I remember in Doha you said you weren’t a souvenir person, which was wild because I literally had a bookshelf of your souvenirs in my office, but getting to see you grow into that little piece of yourself, that small joy?
> 
> God, I’m glad to watch things get better for you.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Sunday, August 12th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I did Alien Movie Night with everyone last night! It’s the first one we’ve been able to use our powers around Kyle, since he knows about Max now from your adventure to Marie and Jared’s storage locker. We watched _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_ ; gotta love whales in space. Rosa made a point of hanging all over me, because, as she put it, “You look like one lonely pendejo, get over here.”
> 
> Sigh.
> 
> But the skin hunger tho, it is real. I’ve coped with it -- I have a lot of touchy friends. I’ve always made a point of making touchy friends, since I figured out I didn’t want anyone but you. Because needing to be touched and wanting you are different things, at least for me. Needing to be part of a physical human community, it’s something I _need_. So, in Roswell, I’ve got Rosa and Liz and Maria, and Kyle’s up for a good cuddle if you catch him in the right mood, and Max is up for anything as long as Liz is there as his Socially Capable Handholder. God, he’s so dumb. Ever since he was 10, he’s been dumb. You know he met Liz like a week after that day at the swingset? I’m pretty sure he’s ramping up to Ask For Her Hand In Marriage. I think he’s convincing himself he needs to ask Arturo’s permission. Jesus. Liz is going to fucking crucify him -- as if it isn’t obvious it’s Rosa’s permission that pendejo needs.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> I think you’ll really enjoy Alien Movie Nights. And if you’re not a cuddler, well, you and I can sit next to each other on the floor, very modest and sedate, while everyone else makes with the puppy piles.
> 
> God, Alex. I miss you.
> 
> Love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Monday, August 13th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I don’t know if I thanked you, properly, for getting Max and Isobel to me. I know you don’t want thanks, didn’t do it for thanks, but -- they mean everything to me. And getting to see you, to see them, on the same day?
> 
> I just felt so loved. So lucky.
> 
> Love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Tuesday, August 14th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> This morning, Kyle texted to say he’d be trying to come by with you to Crashdown before work this morning; it’s a 10 minute drive from my place to Crashdown but I’m pretty sure I did it in 5. Rosa took me Goodwill shopping when I first got back to town and I’d got a full cowboy getup, so I could be around town and you wouldn’t recognize me.
> 
> It sounds silly when I write it that way, but -- we promised we would wait until the end of the story. So, that amazing hat and my curls all tucked up into it -- it seemed to work. Not that you know what I look like at this point, but still: you know what “Dr Guerin” looks like :P.
> 
> (I want to talk about that, too, if you have any questions or worries about it -- I wish you’d known who I was. It felt wrong lying and worse spilling the beans so -- ugh. I still loved that day, it’s still the best day I’ve ever had. But knowing you didn’t know who I was -- Kyle figured it out. Said it was a hell of a time pretending he didn’t know, but I’d explained and explained and explained that you didn’t want to know. He said he checked with you too, and once he knew it was your choice, he settled down. He’s a good one.)
> 
> Back to Crashdown. The conversation with Liz -- it was a lot. I didn’t know you’d spent so much time thinking about that question I’d asked, about what made you happy, but I’m hoping -- I’m hoping it helped. Thinking about what you like. What you want. What you need. I want to know that and I want to help you get to it. I -- I almost went over. But Maria came over, she knows a little of what’s happening, to keep me on the narrow.
> 
> Also, we should go to Oman. We should go everywhere in the entire world. I can’t wait to see it all with you.
> 
> I just -- it was so good to hear you, hear you talk about what you liked, what you wanted, your goals, all those things we’ll get a chance to learn about each other when the time comes.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Wednesday, August 15th, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I spent the day in my lab -- it’s in this bunker under the house. (You would not _believe_ how many houses in Roswell have bunkers; it’s fucking Cold War angsty madness ‘round here 24/7/365). I’ve got 3 big projects you’re going to love -- a little bit of chemistry, a little bit of mechanical engineering, a little bit of time travel physics. I’ve been working on parts of this project since I was 15 -- really since I met you -- and it’s gonna pay off soon.
> 
> It’s honestly done, I’m just futzing around with it. 
> 
> I can’t wait to show you.
> 
> I did think about spending the day clearing the land for the garden; the tumbleweeds came up like crazy over the Spring and my last tenants didn’t want to deal with it, which: fair. I figure maybe it’s a project we can do together, out in the sunshine, for when we’re taking breaks from being naked inside the house.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Thursday, August 16, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I think this visit -- the one with the silver ball, the one where I came out -- was the first time I noticed how careful you were about revealing information about my future and your past. It’s where I really started thinking about the ethics of this all, of what it means to let someone live their own life at the day-by-day human pace that you all evolved to. I could tell, because of how you answered the questions, that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was going to change in some fundamental way, that things were different for you now then they were for me. But you were really careful, really contained about how you talked about it. It was a really cool lesson in boundaries and friendship and doing good for someone who doesn’t have all the facts.
> 
> Anyway, I can’t wait to see you again and for us to be on the same page so we don’t have to use that kind of careful language ever again and I love you.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Friday, August 17, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> The only reason I didn’t tear off after you when you hustled out of the Crashdown in the middle of your panic attack was Rosa physically dragged me into the booth and sat on me. For such a tiny woman, she is really, really strong.
> 
> And right. She was also right.
> 
> Your Dad is the worst, I am so sorry you had to grow-up with him.
> 
> Ok, backing up to the nice stuff: I know it’s not nice to laugh or make fun, but I nearly lost it when Rosa called your angsting about me coming out a ‘queer drama emergency.’ She’s amazing.
> 
> Then it really hit, you saying you’d never at that point kissed someone you like. I just -- I know from things we’ve talked about, your affection and sexuality were part of your job a lot more than they were under your control. And it just -- it makes it so incredibly brave, that you decided to take a risk with me. That you kept trying to take a risk with me. And it makes -- it makes how you were in Doha make so much more sense. When you’ve had so little control over that part of yourself, anyone picking at it or teasing about it, it could be jarring.
> 
> And we -- I know you know this -- but we never have to do anything, if you’re having an off day, or a weird memory funhouse mirrors its way into your life, or if you just don’t feel like it. 
> 
> I’m here for you, not some particular carnival ride. Everything is at your pace.
> 
> Being with you through this, it really reminds me how fast this all was for you. I had years and years to think this all through, but for you -- it’s only been 11 days.
> 
> You’re so special and I love you so much.
> 
> Michael
> 
> PS: I’m taking credit for the motorcycle thing; Kyle can get fucked, bikes are great.
> 
> PPS: Rosa said I’m being a creeper and I’m not allowed to come and see you ~~experience~~ Planet 7 for the first time. I’m gonna go work in my bunker lab and sulk. But I still love you and I hope you have an awesome time.
> 
> \--
> 
> Saturday, August 18, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle called me, all freaked out. He needed to vent and wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but kept going on and on about how pissed he was no one’s given you real support, like, ever and you’re expected to parachute into these places with no backup and just -- survive. How much it’s messed with you, your sense of safety, your sense of yourself. No details, because he’s good like that, but -- I wish I could be there for you. 
> 
> I wish I could hold onto you right now.
> 
> I love you.
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Sunday, August 19, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle came by my place to wait out this mission; I told him I know it’s Somalia because you told me and he said he didn’t want to know any more. He wanted to cook about it, so we made chocolate chip cookies and enough dough to tide us over in the freezer.
> 
> I’ve been, uh, kind of nesting? Or stockpiling? Basically, I have this idea that, when you and I are finally on the same page, we’re not going to want to leave the house for, uh, a little bit. So every day, I’ve been cooking something I think you’d like, eating it with whoever’s keeping me company, and saving at least 2 portions of it in the freezer in the garage. I think I have like a week’s worth of food in there right now -- posoles and maqluba and jollof rice and this thick marinara sauce I learned in med school to get through the Boston winters and cookie dough. So much cookie dough. I also bought like 6 kinds of hot cocoa, because I don’t know what kind you like, but I remember you like cocoa and not coffee.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> Nesting.
> 
> I love you.
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Monday, August 20, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> 14 years later and I can still feel the way my gut plummeted when I saw your leg. It wasn’t that you had a prosthetic, I’d seen people with missing hands and legs and fingers and wearing glasses on the rez growing up. It was the clear evidence that you had a history before me, and not all of it easy or good. You know when you’re young -- or maybe you don’t -- and you think all of the adults around you are ok, are these kind of monoliths, these statutes who you have to operate around. 
> 
> Unchanging, unyielding, exactly as they are with no chance to change or bad days or anything like that. And part of growing-up is realizing they are humans living on a continuum like anybody else, and that my own actions could affect people, even adults.
> 
> And boy, did I learn that on that visit.
> 
> I’d never set someone into a panic attack before, and I like to think that was the last time I ever did it since without helping them back out. It was -- I never want to do that again. When I finally got counseling in college, that was the image -- you scared and hurt because of me -- that drove me into that office every week for 4 years. I’m glad you’re getting counseling too because even though it takes time and it’s not linear, it really, really can help.
> 
> And you deserve help.
> 
> What I said, that you didn’t deserve the bad stuff that had happened to you, it’s true. I think you’re starting to believe it too.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Tuesday, August 21, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle said you had a panic attack because of the last mission, the same one you were in before you left that visit. God, I really am sorry.
> 
> He said he checked with you again about meeting me in this time and you said the same thing about wanting to keep the timelines clear. I agree and I also hate it so much. 
> 
> I miss you.
> 
> I saw you at Crashdown again this morning, heard you asking about me. Heard Liz say I was waiting. I guess that’s what I’m doing. But it’s kind of like how I wait for cookies to be ready -- there’s a timeline. A countdown. And I know at the end, it’s going to be sweet and shared and perfect.
> 
> See you soon.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Tuesday, August 21, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Ok, two letters in one day because I saw you at Planet 7 tonight and _damn_ you look good. So much better. Just a few weeks of actual, real sleep.
> 
> And when you came over to me, oh love. I thought the game was up. I thought I’d finally looked too long. Wanted too much. 
> 
> But instead, you were just trying to get a bit of quiet. Taylor Swift Night can get a little rowdy, which is probably while Isobel founded it back in college. She loves the rowdiness and, as someone who I think is probably cosplaying Tay-Tay in her mind at all times, she enjoyed the chance to show people up.
> 
> But back to you. You just -- you looked so much better. 
> 
> And I couldn’t --
> 
> I couldn’t stop myself. I hadn’t seen you in 14 months and I just -- 
> 
> I wanted --
> 
> Touching your skin made my whole body flare, like I’d stepped into a blazing hot spring or opened a furnace door. 
> 
> Just this side of too much, after so long with none.
> 
> And that’s a damn fine Antares tattoo if I do say so myself.
> 
> That’s definitely the part of you I’m going to kiss first. 
> 
> I’ve decided.
> 
> See you soon.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Wednesday, August 22, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> I was thinking about it more, after Rosa and Kyle took advantage of you being on a mission to come over and bawl me out about talking to you at Planet 7. They just left -- and took half a plate of cookies ‘as payment for dealing with your relationship issues, Miguel’ -- and I can’t feel bad about it. 
> 
> I know it’s pushing the boundaries on contact, but it’s also -- it’s you. 
> 
> You were happy and smiling and I could talk to you, I could be the first guy you flirted with that night, so, what was the harm?
> 
> I don’t know if you actually like Planet 7 or you’re just needing a real queer space to be in for the first time in your life, but whether its there or in our living room, I want to take you dancing. I want to see you that happy and free again. I want to move against you, get to see you dancing and grinning and mine.
> 
> And I’m yours.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Thursday, August 23, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> This is the visit where I really started planning my project. It seemed so doable at 15; like, just 3 things. Get a PhD, get a medical degree, figure out how to fix the timestream so you never had to grow-up with your Dad.
> 
> And some of it is that easy -- well, not easy, because grad school is The Real Deal when it comes to stress -- but some is, more complicated. I went back and forth, for years, for decades really, about whether if I had all the power in the world, I would just, change your custody arrangement at 2. Or fake your Time Awareness score. Or report your Dad to the Military Police for child abuse when you were 2, get you sent back to Sara.
> 
> I thought of a dozen, a hundred, a thousand scenarios, ways to get you out, get you the childhood you deserved -- the one you gave me.
> 
> And then, one night in Libya, I realized: it’s not on me. It’s not my choice, it’s not my life, it’s not my decision. You get to chose, to decide. The thing is, for someone who’s Time Aware, it’s all already happened. Even if you changed it, made an avulsion, it would already have happened to you. There’s no erasing the past for people like us; just remembering from it. Learning from it. You get to have all the support we can provide you, so when you have the headspace and the resources, _you_ can decide.
> 
> That’s when I started focusing on what it would take to make these weeks work, to make sure you had what you needed, stability and friendship and resources-wise, so when you had the chance, you could grow as fast as you can; you could get out. 
> 
> I hope it works.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Thursday, August 23, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> So Kyle texted to say you figured it out, figured out I was Dr Guerin. 
> 
> And I wanted to say, since he said you were worried about it -- you did everything right. You were a friend to a scared kid. 
> 
> You’ve always been my friend first and you’ve always been really good with boundaries. Even when I was a 20-year-old professor you didn’t know, your first reaction was to set a healthy boundary. I never felt groomed, I never felt nudged or coerced. I had a lot of good, age-appropriate relationships before we ever started talking about going in that direction.
> 
> Just, I know you worry about not being the good guy, but to me, Alex, you’ve always been the good guy.
> 
> I love you,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Friday, August 24, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Ok, so, maybe getting drunk and going to Pegasus with Kelsey and Bri wasn’t my brightest idea. But hey, I was 16 and adorable. What do you want from me.
> 
> If you were wondering: yes, seeing your UV tattoo _is_ when I decided to get my first.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Saturday, August 25, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle texted to say he had you doing manual labor with his Mom; she loved Sara a lot and I’m glad you get to spend time with her. Maybe we should have a big party when we’re back on the same page, invite everyone.
> 
> Or maybe we should have our own private party first.
> 
> I’m not going to lie, I’m really hoping you’re as ready for being on the same page as I am, because it’s going to take a lot of effort to tamp this down.
> 
> I don’t know what I want to do first, but it’s going to involve a lot of skin.
> 
> Or not, if that doesn’t work for you; but I hope it does. I think it will. I remember how you looked in that laundry room, like I was your oxygen line and you were coming up from the deep. 
> 
> I love you so much. See you soon.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Sunday, August 26, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle texted -- there’s something off about this mission to Sierra Leone. He thinks it’s a set-up. 
> 
> It is.
> 
> I know it is.
> 
> I know, because I can still feel your ribs as your skin healed around that knife wound. 
> 
> I can still remember the sound your bones made as I healed your ankle. 
> 
> I’ve still got that grenade in the closet. It’s stored properly, but I never disassembled it. I figured, if people like that are going to come after you, I wanted to have something a bit more lasting, a bit more unstoppable than my TK to rely on if they came for me too.
> 
> I want to tell him. 
> 
> I want to tell _you_. 
> 
> Jesus, it’s hard. 
> 
> I know you don’t want me to. So I won’t.
> 
> Is this what you felt like, knowing about Sara? About the 2016 election? 
> 
> Is it always this hard?
> 
> Let’s never end-up in different timestreams again, ok? 
> 
> This fucking sucks.
> 
> At least I know when you come back I’ll get to feel your feelings for a week.
> 
> I am looking forward to _that_ like nobody’s business. I know you’ll be wondering where I am, when I am; at least I can make sure you know I love you with every fiber of my being.
> 
> And when we see each other again, I know I’ll get to kiss you and make sure you know it _in your bones_ that I love you until the end of time.
> 
> Only a few weeks left, my love.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Monday, August 27, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> You’re on the Sierra Leone mission now; I spent the day in the lab distracting myself, doodling on the project.
> 
> I was thinking, after we’ve had time with each other, just to ourselves, we might want to go traveling. Spend more than 1000 seconds or a tight 24 mission at some of the places we’ve been and seen.
> 
> I want to show you Libya, bring you to my Mom.
> 
> I want to sail in the Mediterranean with you.
> 
> Hike the Tibesti Mountains.
> 
> Spend spend more than 16 minutes under all those stars at Wow-a-Namous. You were so beautiful in the starlight there. And this time I wouldn’t have any of the flowers with me, so I could use my TK to keep the mosquitoes away while we explored the crater lake.
> 
> I want to take you dune bashing in the wadis and swimming in the ocean and just -- be. With you. For a while, at least, until the world pulls us back together into it.
> 
> Because there’s so much we both care about, so much we want to do.
> 
> But we deserve some time. Just for us. Just together.
> 
> I love you so much.
> 
> See you soon.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--
> 
> Tuesday, August 28, 2018
> 
> Dear Alex,
> 
> Kyle is still all worked-up about the mission. 
> 
> I gave in a little, told him to call me, I’d help, if something happened.
> 
> But it’s going to be ok; I know, because I saw you the next year and everything was fine.
> 
> I can’t wait to see you, my love.
> 
> Yours always,
> 
> Michael
> 
> \--

Alex set the letter to the side. The box was empty. Tuesday, August 28th; the day Michael had traded his life for Alex’s. Or, at least, his freedom.

_Come and get me, ghost._

Then Captain Alex Manes pulled out his phone, took it off airplane mode, and went to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as I've shared before (https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/618156609307344896/okay-if-you-dont-mind-could-you-tell-us-more), I'm a pantser, not a plotter. I started this story on May 8th without an outline and used a lot of fun, ad hoc structures to get it going and keep it working.
> 
> But, like I highlighted in the craft essay above, I adore tight structure and satisfying endings. Which meant, for these last 2 chapters, I spent the last 3 days re-reading this entire thing and putting it into a spreadsheet, which you can see here if you're curious: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16NeUwFWbKc8wzaKFhb7tgPTUXrjtoCk4kn2Vg5dAzPg/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> That's the only way I could put dates on every letter from Michael, or list every present Alex has given Michael at the beginning of the last chapter. In generating that document, I also made small corrections to punctuation, grammar, and some places I said "two weeks" when it turns out "three weeks" was more accurate. Nothing most readers would notice and nothing that changes the story.
> 
> We're getting towards the end and I hope you're enjoying this as much as I am.


	43. ready to blow

Alex set the letter to the side. The box was empty. Tuesday, August 28th; the day Michael had traded his life for Alex’s. Or, at least, his freedom. 

_Come and get me, ghost._

Then Captain Alex Manes pulled out his phone, took it off airplane mode, and went to work. 

First were three text messages from Rosa, all within 10 minutes of his last text:

> **Rosa** : shit, I’m texting Kyle
> 
> **Rosa** : Michael’s still in jail, you two pendejos are doing your star crossed thing, so you’re not allowed to be pissed at me for making you do gardening work; those tumbleweeds were rough and you needed the healthy outside time
> 
> 15 minutes later:
> 
> **Rosa** : are you legit sulking, Alex? I have between one and two million questions I’m finally allowed to ask, so when you come out of your angst cave, we’re gonna have *words*

Next was Kyle:

> **Kyle** : Rosa texted me to say you know. I think that means you’ve caught-up with Michael, or, at least, where he was on August 28th
> 
> **Kyle** : She said you’re at his place; I’ll coming over in an hour if I don’t hear from you before
> 
> **Kyle** : We’re going to make this right.

Alex checked the time stamp; 46 minutes. It was only 8:12pm. He closed his eyes, feeling the tap-tap-tap of Michael’s awareness in his skin; he felt calm and safe. _Whether he’s lying about that or not remains to be seen_ ; Alex thought grimly, remembering awakening to the feeling of a boot on his chest and then Michael’s fake-ok feelings after that. 

Alex started a thread with both of them:

> **Alex** : Can you both meet me at Michael’s place? I’ve got some dinners we can heat up. We’re getting him out. Tonight.
> 
> **Kyle** : Be there in 12
> 
> **Rosa** : Me too. Sit tight, Alex

Alex wrapped the saddle blanket around his shoulders, burying his face in it and taking a long, deep breath of it. It felt warm from his lap, but nothing like Michael.

 _Help is on the way_ , he thought as hard as he could at Michael, knowing words didn’t translate but feelings did. 

_Stay safe, love._

Then he folded the blanket and brought it to the couch, setting it over the back where he could see it. He went to the fridge and pulled out what looked like maqluba, beginning to heat it on the stove. Michael had been right: the freezer was _full_ of food. The kitchen was laid-out like the one in Michael’s loft had been, everything within easy reach. As Alex was looking for some pepper, since he knew Rosa liked things spicier than traditional maqluba involved, he opened up the small pantry to see -- a pair of crutches. His careful calm cracked, right down the center. 

He bet, if he looked, these wouldn’t be the only ones. Michael had bought crutches and stashed them around the house. So if Alex took his leg off, he was never far from a mobility aid.

Alex braced his hands against the tile counter, gasping. He felt a flush of worry come from Michael, but he didn’t know the trick of hiding these new, overwhelming emotions, now he was letting himself have feelings; not from himself, not from Michael. He felt a pulse, and then felt it recede; pulse; recede. _He’s breathing with me; so far away and in danger, and he’s breathing me through this._ Alex followed Michael’s breaths, followed the shape of them, until he could feel his arms, his elbows, his forearms, his palms, his fingertips. The fridge had a photo-magnet with Alex and Kyle riding the Rattler in Santa Fe; he wasn’t alone; Michael and their friends had had time to prepare for this. Alex stood up, stirred the maqluba, and started to make a plan.

He heard Kyle’s truck coming down the long drive and got the plates out; it would be another 10 minutes before the maqluba was ready. He got out some drinking water, setting it on the island. He took a seat on one of the stools; _easy to cook from, so you don’t have to stand the whole time_. His heart squeezed but he sent a warm feeling to Michael, to make sure he knew he was alright.

Kyle opened the door carefully, telegraphing his movements and not moving past the doorway. Alex could see where it had been rehung, the hinges new around the paint; _Rosa or Max must have replaced it after Flint and his team smashed it open_.

“Alex?”

Alex kept his voice level: “Where is Michael right now.”

“The R&D lab in the basement of the base.” 

“How long has he been there.”

Kyle was keeping his hands in plain sight, careful not to move: “Since he first came to the Time Agency.”

“Where?” Alex’s voice cracked; he forced it back to normal, or the best approximation of it he could breathe through: “Where’s he been sleeping?”

“They turned the surgery theater into a cell. Alex, I’ve seen him or talked with him every single day since he arrived. They’ve kept his powers suppressed with this purple flower from Libya.” Alex nodded; apparently it could suppress his TK without touching his psychic skills; he wondered if the Time Agency knew that. Kyle kept going, speeding up, desperation creeping in: “He’s who needed the blood sample from your last check-up, your test results from some of the others -- he was developing a serum, and something about a new device, something that would help him escape.”

Alex filed that away for later, trying not to think of that horrible operating theater. _There were so many cameras in there_ , Alex thought, shrinking inside at the thought of free-spirited Michael not having an unwatched moment for a month. Alex said: “The Colonel’s been with him the whole time?”

Kyle’s hand grasped the side of the door as he sagged against it: “The Colonel’s been in there with him any time you weren’t scheduled to be on base. He’s been sleeping on base. He --” He took a hard breath. “He hasn’t been hurting him, Alex. You have to believe that. Not like he did you.” Something awful slithered away from Alex’s heart, like a boa constrictor had bestowed an unexpected mercy. Kyle made himself continue: “There was one night, at the beginning, Flint went after him, when he thought he was sleeping, tried some of the crap on him he tried on you.” Kyle’s face wasn’t a kind one, but there was a grim satisfaction in his expression. “I think Flint forgot that Michael’s had decades to prepare and no one conditioning him not to fight back against him. He was wide awake; waiting. Flint’s security team had to scrape his unconscious body off the floor and that was the last he tried to hurt Michael.”

“The Colonel must have hated that.”

“He said ‘I like men who win fights.’”

A chill like jagged chunks of ice ran down Alex’s spine at the sound of the Colonel’s words in Kyle’s warm voice.

Kyle kept going, disgust clear on his face: “The Colonel -- he tried to win Michael over. Made sure to show him you were ok, tried to figure out how you two knew each other -- not that Michael gave him a single spec of information past that all Antarans were grateful to you for the closing of Caulfield -- and he tried flattery;” he huffed,“ he even included him on one of the panels of R&D scientists who got to meet with the Congressional Delegation after your trip to Gaza.” Kyle got a smirk on his face. “He told Congressman Wiltson point-blank that Antarans should be in charge of the technology they developed, that they were best prepared to handle it ethically. I’m not sure the Congressman from South Carolina knew what to do with that.”

Alex forced himself to say: “And -- you waited. You waited to tell me because I -- Michael and I -- told you to?”

Kyle choked, hand going to cover his mouth before curling into a fist and falling to his side. “Yes. And I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself if this doesn’t work.”

“I saw him,” Alex said, voice catching as he looked down, gripped the island’s edge; he heard Kyle take a step towards him. “On the mission today. I saw him get taken.”

“I didn’t know you had a mission yesterday until you were already gone, they wouldn’t tell me _anything_ \--” 

Alex nodded, not looking up: “They had me drop off Michael’s new device and serum, back in 2008. At my surgery.” He kept his tone even as he looked up to meet Kyle’s eyes: “I saw you there.”

Kyle blanched. For a second, Alex could see that grief-stricken 18-year-old intern, wringing his hands between them: “Alex, I’m so sorry, I knew you didn’t want it and I didn’t _do anything to stop --_ ”

Alex held up his hand: “I was the agent. The one who dropped it off.” 

There was a crunch in the driveway that sounded like Rosa’s pick-up truck; her door slammed. Kyle closed his eyes: “I figured that out, the first time they sent you out in that horrifying Winter Soldier get-up, in my first year. But I knew, if you had Sara’s same ethics around time travel, that you wouldn’t want to know I’d seen you before.” He took a breath. “And it’s not like I could ever get you alone, away from those cameras and those microphones, to tell you.” 

Rosa rushed past the kitchen window, black baseball cap on, low over her face; she skidded to a stop in the doorway, looking between where Kyle stood with his hands clasped and Alex sat stiffly at the counter. 

Alex frowned, asking: “‘Winter Soldier get-up’?”

Kyle huffed a laugh, glancing back at Rosa: “It’s what Michael calls it; he made us all watch the Captain American movies for Alien Movie Night. He said it was how you looked when he first met you.”

Rosa had had enough: “Hold. The. Fuck. Up. It’s been two months I’ve been pretending I don't know Miguel, ‘cause he and Kyle and literally everyone told me I had to shut the fuck up about him while we got to know you, but _no one would ever explain why_. _When_ did Michael meet Alex, _why_ do they know each other when Alex has been like Rapunzeled-up in that fucking hell-hole of a base until like a month and a half ago --” she threw-up her hands, expression thunderous.

Kyle shot a look over to her: “It has to do with where Alex and I work. Which is classified, _like I_ _told_ _you_ \--”

Alex suppressed a smile as they flickered between English and Spanish as they bickered and turned to the stove, mechanically plating the maqluba. The rice and the vegetables no longer in their stacks, more of a cardamom and pepper-scented stew than anything else. He thought this through. There were a dozen regulations, some written in blood, defining who and who could not know about the existence of the Time Agency. Every single person who’d witnessed him come back into the time chamber had been sworn to secrecy under penalty of having their timelines fucked with. But the only person who could give that order was Flint -- _or the Colonel_ , he thought with a chill.

Tonight, that was all going to change.

“Come on, sit down; if I’ve learned anything in the past two months, it’s that we need to eat to survive.”

He saw a flash of pride across Kyle’s voice as he pulled up a stool, took a long drink from his tall clear glass; Rosa swung her leg over the top of the stool, hitching the low heels of her combat boots over its crossbars. He took a bite of the dinner, then set his fork down.

He turned Kyle: “I want to tell her,” he said to Kyle. Kyle froze, turning back to him. Then he glanced at Rosa, then back at Alex.

“You think we can keep her safe?”

“I promise we will.”

“Why the _fuck_ would I need you to keep me safe, Alejandro?” Rosa smacked her hands down on the counter, rattling the cutlery; Alex held back a flinch. “ _What the fuck is going on.”_

Kyle glanced over at her for a long moment, then said: “Ok.”

Alex spoke with clear finality before Rosa could object again: “I’m a time traveler.” Rosa turned big wide eyes to him. “Michael’s people invented time travel tech to get to Earth from their home planet and I’m one of a vanishly small group of humans who can use it.” Alex unbuttoned the top buttons of his henley, showing the gentle pulse of the device under his skin; he hadn’t looked at it closely, but he remembered what it had looked like in his teenaged self’s chest. 

“I had this implanted in me when I was 18. I spent a decade unwinding wars, foreign policy cowardice, dozens of mistakes we could only see -- or only get enough buy-in from powerful people to fix -- in hindsight. I helped a lot of people and I was miserable.” He took a breath, wishing Michael was here with everything he had. “I was mistreated and had no power and got hurt, a lot, in ways I didn’t need to be, wouldn't have been hurt if there had been anyone who cared whether I lived or died.” He glanced over at Kyle. “People tried to help. But they couldn’t; the system I was in was too strong, led by my father and helped by my brother, Flint.”

He worked his jaw: “Then, six weeks ago, after a godawful mission to Iraq, I showed up someplace I’ve never been.”

Kyle’s voice was low and quiet: “The kind of time travel the Time Agency does only lets people travel on their own timelines,” he glanced over at Alex. “Until that night.”

“Until that night.” Alex said. “We don’t know why or how, but I showed up and stopped something bad from happening to an 8-year-old Michael. Then, after every mission for the last 20 missions, I got 1000 seconds with him,” his voice crumbled a little, but he kept going. “Once a year for him.”

Rosa spoke in a low voice to Kyle: “Is this for real?”

Kyle nodded: “Dad knew about it, my Mom does, Arturo doesn’t, God only knows what your Mom knows.” He took a breath. “Alex’s Mom knew; she tried to get him out, but the Colonel had the courts rigged against her.” He let out a disgusted breath. “Turns out you can scare a lot of people with the substantiated threat you can fuck with their timelines;” he cut a glance over to Alex, “including scaring them into giving sole custody of a two-year-old to an abusive monster like Jesse Manes.”

“Alex,” Rosa said, voice cracking, “that’s -- that’s a lot.”

Alex bit his lip: “There’s more, but --” he took a breath, and it caught on the way in. “Michael -- he traded himself. For me. My father,” he felt his face shutter down, his expression cooling like a corpse underwater, “He tried to have me killed. I spent 6 hours bleeding out in a hotel room in Freetown, holding a grenade against my chest to keep it from exploding. Then I showed up in Michael’s flat when he was 17, and he saved me, left a handprint like this --” and he unhooked his time watch, showing his friends the light flush of purple, orange, red and blue shimmering over his wrist. 

Rosa’s smile was fragile as she reached over, fingers hovering just above Alex’s skin: “I’ve seen those -- like when Max heals Liz’s papercuts.”

Alex kept going: “Michael -- he saved me. Kept me from dying. Then I showed up back in Roswell, and my father -- the Colonel, the head of the Time Agency -- he was the only one in the room --”

Kyle broken in, face pained. “He forced us to leave before Alex arrived. Michael called me, told me he could feel you through the bond, that you were scared, _dying_. And I told him the Colonel had cleared the room and,” Kyle covered his face with his hands. “He told me to hand the phone to Flint. I could only hear a little but Flint took the phone into the lab, kept me from getting in; then a minute later, Flint comes flying out, rounding up a dozen of his security staff from the barracks, and goes charging out -- I had to get you out of there, and Michael had told me not to tell you, told me to tell you it was one of the aliens in Libya who called, and --” Kyle stared down at the counter, eyes bright. “I feel like we failed you.” 

Alex nudged his plate towards him, voice quiet: “You did what we asked you to do. And it’s going to be a long night for all of us, so you need to eat.” He nudged the side of Kyle’s plate.

Alex took a bite of the maqluba; it was _good_. Rosa dug in as well, muttering: “Michael makes this so much better than you do, no offense Alex.”

“None taken, he’s probably had more than 4 continuous weeks of his life with access to a stove.”

They chewed in silence. Alex chewed over what Kyle had said. “But it wasn’t just Michael’s offer, right? You told Flint that you’d been recording what had happened in that room?”

Kyle nodded, color better now he was eating. “It’s a belt-and-suspenders approach. I didn’t know the Colonel was going to try to suffocate you with gas,” Rosa looked a little queasy, but kept eating; “And I didn’t know Michael was planning a hero move. But I knew whatever the Colonel was planning couldn’t be good for you, because he _never_ has your best interests at heart, so I started the recording before I left.”

“You still have it?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “Backed-up in 3 places and 2 countries.”

“Good.” Alex said, pushing his plate away and glancing at the night-strewn garden, empty chairs gilded in the rising moonlight. “Because we’re going to need it. Can you text it to my personal number?” Kyle nodded.

Alex pulled out his phone, opened an email to Undersecretary Clara Power and Congressman Joe Wiltson.

> Good evening Undersecretary Power and Congressman Wiltson,
> 
> I hope this finds you well. I was hoping we could schedule a call tomorrow morning to discuss the leadership of the Time Agency. Attached is an audio file, recorded by a member of our medical staff, of the former Director of the Time Agency (Colonel Jesse Manes) and the current interim Director of the Time Agency (Sergeant Flint Manes) conspiring to kill a Time Agent inside the Time Chamber less than 2 weeks after your visit. The Time Agent survived but the incident exposed a need for a leadership change. As the Director is Congressionally appointed by House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research (STAR) Subcommittee, on which Rep. Wiltson serves and where Undersecretary Power knows many of the major players, I was hoping for your advice on the best way to bring this before the committee. 
> 
> Congressman Wiltson, we had discussed ways in which we could bring the US into a closer relationship with the Antarans in Libya; I believe the current crisis at the Time Agency provides us a chance to solve one problem with another. The Ambassador you mentioned, Nora Truman, her son is a US citizen and has been working at the Time Agency under duress -- he is on the other side of the phone conversation you can hear in the attached recording -- but may be able to bridge that divide, if given the right supports and freedoms.
> 
> Undersecretary Power, you described genocides committed during your lifetime that the US had not intervened in by saying: “American leaders did not act because they did not want to.” This is a case where we can act and restore justice to a people affected by a generational injustice we have long benefitted from.
> 
> My personal cellphone number, as well as the doctor who recorded the incident’s number, are in my signature below; if you cannot reach us tomorrow at 8am EST, I strongly recommend that a neutral ombudsman is appointed to review this issue and to personally inspect the R&D facilities in the basement of the Time Agency.
> 
> I am sorry to bring trouble to your door, but I believe, together, now is the time to fix this.
> 
> My very best,
> 
> Captain Alex Manes

He showed Kyle the message, cc-ed him, and then hit _send_. Then he laid his hands down flat on the island. “Here’s what I’m thinking.”

The plan he’d been working through in the back of his mind since the moment he’d heard Michael speaking to Flint on the phone was simple. They had three enemies: Flint’s security team, Flint, and the Colonel. 

Rosa would lead Max, Liz and Maria take on Flint’s security team: they inventoried Michael’s house, the closet where he’d kept Alex’s bag from the Hebron mission, and the bomb shelter under the house. Alex’s chest had crunched when he recognized the oversized light bulbs, lab tables, and robot snakes from Michael’s Pittsburgh loft, and the star charts and periodic table of elements posters from his childhood bedroom and his house in Doha, but he held onto one clear image: Michael, safe and free, showing him this home he’d built for them. 

Kyle would handle Flint and any security staff inside the Time Agency. He and Alex spent an hour talking through every option, and in the end, Kyle left with only two things in his bag: the knock-out pills from Hebron, one of Michael’s snake robots, and the hand grenade from Sierra Leone whose pin Michael had thoughtfully re-inserted. Once Kyle was set-up, Alex would text Flint, telling him he urgently needed to meet him in the laboratory which held the time chamber.

Alex would handle the Colonel.

The entire time they were planning, Alex could feel Michael, awake, prodding at the bond, sending him warm, soft feelings. Reminders he was ok. Reminders he trusted him. A constant heartbeat of hope. 

Kyle and Rosa left to get supplies from the Crashdown and the Wild Pony; they would all meet a mile out from the base gates at midnight, in 2 hours.

Alone in the house again, Alex took the guns from the closet, the zipties and the medspray. He had no idea if the injection Michael had designed for him actually improved the medspray’s operation or did something else entirely, but he’d rather have it than not. He didn’t have body armor, a mask; the only knives he had he’d found in Michael’s bunker, well-made hunting knives. He strapped them onto his body, sinking down into his mind and letting his coldest self rise up.

The plan would work.

It had to.

\--

The sky seemed infinite where Alex leaned against his sport bike, tucked into a wadi at the base of a bloodred mesa made colorless by moonlight. The dry wash was pale around his black shadow, different sized pebbles shadowed sharply in the silent night. Alex refused to think of Libya, to think of how Michael had laid, asleep in his loft in Pittsburgh, the Omani saddleblanket a red slash across his bare body. He would not think of nights spent alone in deserts before he knew the power of a soft touch from a loving man, how such a touch could change the world. 

Rosa pulled around the corner first, headlights off, crunching through the gravel into a gentle park. She hopped out, baseball cap in hand, and piled into Alex, dragging him into a hug.

“I didn’t like lying to you, Alejandro,” she muttered into his neck. “Michael’s a good kid and you two are obviously over-the-moon for each other, but after this, we’re going to have some special Us Time to make sure we’re cool.”

“We’re cool, Rosa,” Alex muttered through a flurry of her hair, feeling his body soften the tiniest amount against her hard hug.

“Nuh uh, tell me that _after_ we get Miguel’s ass out of Alien Gitmo or whatever you idiotas call that piece of work place you work.” 

She didn’t wait for him to reply before she pulled back, stripping a hair tie off her wrist and flipping forward so her hair hung upside down, then beginning to braid it up backwards; that would keep it out of the way.

Alex kept his voice low as he wandered over to inspect the hundreds of gallons of cooking oil and other tools in the back of her pick-up truck: “You know, if this goes right, it won’t be that intense an experience. Not much for us sensation junkies to chew on.”

She nodded, standing up to tuck the new braid into her baseball cap: “Yeah, hopefully Liz and I will just Krazy Glue the barracks doors shut, coat the floors with oil, slash the tires and Maximo can short out the engines with his --” and she gave jazz hands. “Kyle will take care of Flint, and you’re,” and her face crumpled. “I’m still not cool with you going up against your shitbag of a father alone.”

“There’s enough room for Max and Liz in there?” He said, gesturing to the truck bed, trying to redirect her.

She nodded, clearly catching his evasion but letting him get away with it for now, pointing to the spaces behind the strapped-in barrels. “They’ll be here in a minute; they had to get some supplies from Michelle.”

“The Sheriff knows about tonight?”

Rosa nodded, looking to the road where they could hear a single truck approaching: “Kyle was sure she’d approve -- ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ is a family motto, not just Jim’s thing. Michelle knows how fucked-up the Time Agency is for a long time _apparently_ , though of course nobody thought to include _me_ in any of this family drama.” She took a breath, settling her shoulders. “Fixing family sins, that’s a duty. Freeing people who are trapped, caring for family, that’s honor. Country takes a back seat until the first two are satisfied.”

“That’s a good code -- I don’t know if my family has a code.” Alex said, bending down to check something between the two barrels -- there it was. Rosa had tucked an axe between the barrels and felt his shoulders relax: they’d talked about this. If Flint’s security team _really_ needed to get out -- say, because one of them was dumb enough to start a fire -- they could force the doors open.

Alex was aiming for everyone to survive the night.

_Well, almost everyone._

Rosa bumped him with her hip: “We’ve still got time to bring Maria in; I know she’s the cavalry, keeping contact with the Antarans in Libya. But you don’t need to go against the shitbird alone.”

Alex shook his head: “I won’t be alone.”

Kyle’s truck came around the corner and pulled to a stop. He hopped out, hitching a heavy bag onto his shoulders. Then he gave Alex a big hug, handing over the keys and murmuring: “I texted Ms Shapiro; she’ll be there.”

“Thank you, Kyle.” Alex said.

Max and Liz pulled themselves from the back, carrying what looked like industrial bolt cutters and some kind of road spikes between them. They loaded them into the back of Rosa’s truck and then helped Alex load his bike and two sets of helmuts onto the new rack on the back of Kyle’s truck.

Once it was secured Max’s face was serious as he stepped close: “I’m no Isobel, but I can use my psychic powers to get us through the gates if we have to, if they decide to search Rosa’s truck even with Kyle driving it.”

Liz slung an arm around Max’s waist, face serious: “We’re your backup, Alex. You come up against something you can’t handle, we’ll storm the gates, come in and get you.” She wrapped her hand around his upper arm, holding on tightly. “You’re both family. We’ll be there.”

Alex felt his face crumple a little; but then he pulled it together. “Thank you. I -- I can’t wait to get to know you both more, now we’re all on the same page.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Liz said, glancing up at Max: “We’re not that complicated. Max is a big softie who likes Russian novels and making lightning storms when he’s amped up; I’m a genius biochemist with a complicated family -- not that much more to know. Everything else is just,” she flapped her hand, “window dressing.” She smiled: “What matters is we’re here for you.”

“I want you two to stay safe, ok? The men you’re going up against, they won’t be armed but they are used to being in physically violent situations. I lived in that barracks with them and men like them for years, before I moved in with Kyle; they won’t have any sympathy for your cause or my or Michael’s safety.”

“We’ll stay safe,” Max said. “Promise.” He paused, then said: “I haven’t been able to feel Michael in a month, but Kyle said you can -- he marked you?”

Alex nodded, holding out his wrist. Max looked at but didn’t touch the swirl of colors across his skin.

Max’s voice was low when he said: “Michael was working on something, some kind of serum, an antidote to the power suppressants. Kyle wasn’t able to get him much details on the formula they were using, since it had been decades since the Time Agency had had a live Antaran to work on.” He took a breath. “He thought he might need to be on the inside to figure it out. So what I’m saying is -- don’t blame yourself. Michael made his choice, and now we’re going to save him. But him being in the Time Agency -- that’s not on you.”

Alex felt his mouth go grim, eyes hard: “He wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for me. I think we can agree to disagree.”

Max looked like he was going to argue, but Rosa leaned in. 

“Can we get this show on the road?” Rosa said, slinging her arm around Alex’s waist. “I’ve got a shift tomorrow morning and I’d like to see Miguel’s face before I see my pillow again.”

Alex smiled and nodded. “Alright. One more time, let’s go over the logistics.”

Alex pointed to the three groups: “Kyle will drive Rosa’s truck to the barracks with Rosa, Max, and Liz hidden under tarps in the back. They’ll stay in the truck bed. I will follow behind and then drive Kyle to the Time Agency, about a mile away. Kyle and I will get the time chamber set-up and then I’ll text Flint, telling him there’s an emergency and I need to see him in the time chamber. As soon as he leaves, Rosa, Max, and Liz will sabotage all of the remaining security teams’ trucks, oil all the floors, Krazy Glue the doors -- basically, ensure we’re not going to get routed from the rear in the middle of the mission. Then Rosa, Liz, and Max will drive Rosa’s truck to the Time Agency and wait; you’re our back-up escape vehicle.”

Kyle broke in: “Once Alex texts Flint, he’ll dash down to meet with Ms Shapiro and get her help getting into the R&D lab unnoticed -- “

Max shook his head: “I don’t know how you’re going to do that -- you’re pretty recognizable. The Colonel has to be expecting you’re going to try to break Michael out, if he knows _anything_ about you two.” 

Alex smiled: “Everyone forgets that time travel takes a lot of laundry. And nobody pays attention to what’s in the go boxes the laundry gets sorted into.”

Kyle nodded: “Once Alex is through the secure doors locking the R&D lab, I’ll create a situation that ensures Flint will call all security personnel to the time chamber. I’ve kept track since Michael’s been in there -- there’s one overnight guard, doing rounds throughout the building and two on the doors to the R&D department. That will clear about a 10 minute window for Alex to deal with the Colonel and get Michael out. The go signal is a building-wide announcement calling security to the time chamber. Once Michael and Alex are heading out of the base on Alex’s bike, Max will short-out the power to the building and I’ll get back to my truck in the chaos. Then I’ll drive my truck out, Rosa will drive her truck out, and we’ll scatter until Alex sends the all clear signal."

Rosa smiled: “I’ve got a hotel room in El Paso with my name on it.”

Liz and Max grinned: “We’re going to be camping in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for the next week.”

Kyle's face was more serious, but Alex detected a bit of relief: "I have a week at a spa in Denver all booked out."

Alex looked around at them: civilians, willing to risk their lives, their livelihoods, their _futures_ to get Michael free. He looked at his new family. He’d feel a million, billion things for them -- overwhelming gratitude, happiness, comfort, love -- but only after he knew Michael was safe. For now, he nodded sharply.

“Sounds like a plan. Stay safe, stay in contact, and stay with the plan. See everyone on the other side.”


	44. Dear Daddy, I write you, in spite

Alex parked Kyle’s truck in its regular spot and they unloaded his bike; he nodded to a bored-looking security agent on the way in to the time chamber lab. Once they unsealed the time chamber, set-up the contents of Kyle’s bag, and then resealed it, Alex texted Flint:

> **Alex** : Something’s wrong with the device from the last mission, the implant is going haywire and I can’t get ahold of Kyle. I need help -- I’m at the time chamber and I don’t know what to do.

Flint replied in seconds:

> **Flint:** on my way, be there in 15

Alex showed his screen to Kyle, gave him a hard hug, and then trotted out the door and down the stairs, weaving his way through the corridors to Patrice Shapiro’s laundry room. The door was open, the sound of the dryers a comforting roar.

Ms Shapiro stood, beefy arms folded across her chest. She looked Alex up and down.

“Michelle’s boy, the doctor, he texted me. I’m here. What’s going on?”

Alex took a breath. “I saw what you said, at Sara’s funeral.” Her face stilled, eyes growing sharp on his face. He held her gaze: “There’s a man in the R&D lab; trapped there. He's been there for a month. He’s my sparrow, Ms Shapiro. He’s the one who made me treasure freedom, made me want to learn to fly.”

She took a heavy breath, unfolding her arms: “The one who gave you the olives?”

He nodded.

She worked her jaw, giving him a long look. “What do you want from me?”

“I need to take a ride in one of your go boxes,” he said, pointing to a hip-high beige plastic sided box with a canvass top on an industrial cart; the kind he loaded all of his gear into and pulled his change of clothes out of after every mission. “I need you to get me past the ID scanner and the armed guards outside of the R&D and into the locked lab." 

She frowned, thinking for a long moment. Then she nodded, beginning to empty a go box labeled 'R&D laundry'. To her working hands and under the chaos of the dryer, she said: “You know he’s in there, right? The Colonel’s in there, watching him?”

Alex swallowed. “Kyle said he might be. That he’s been sleeping here.”

“And expecting _me_ to do his fucking laundry, that fuckface,” she growled.

Alex stepped forward to help, pulling out what looked like one of Michael’s henleys; there was a brown stain around the collar he refused to think about. He felt a warning twinge in his wrist, and he tried to send back a feeling of warmth, of safety.

Ms Shapiro spoke quietly: “Sara was a good woman. Your bastard of a father tried to beat it out of her. She got to live her life free, but lost you. Nothing can make that right. Not killing, not time travel. There will always be a Sara Shanta who had to live without her baby boy and always an Alex who had to grow-up without his Mom.” She took a breath. “But that’s no reason not to try. To make things right.” She reached across the go box, pressing her pointed fingers into the brown skin of his sternum, just over his device, revealed by his unbuttoned henley. “Make it right in _this_ timeline, for _this_ Alex. You deserve to fly free, just as much as she did.”

She looked down at the empty basket.

“You going to be ok in there? It’s gonna be a tight fit.”

Alex nodded, lifting taking her offered hand to balance as he stepped into the box prosthetic first. “I’ll be fine.”

\--

The R&D Department had sat like a primed bear trap at the heart of the Time Agency since the day he’d come back from Sierra Leone; Alex just hadn't known it until that today. Banning his father from the premises for the limited time Alex had been in the building has given Kyle some breathing room to help Michael, but not much.

Alex thought about all this as they rumbled down the deserted hallways, Ms Shapiro’s heavy steps the only sound other than the squeaky wheels of the cart she was pushing. The dark, cotton-and-plastic-and-bleach scented trip felt impossibly long.

Alex felt a flare of pain from Michael followed by another burst of reassurance, but he had no idea if it was fear for him, or if something was happening to Michael; he forced himself to breathe slowly and evenly, watching his wrist. Flint would reach the building in minutes.

Alex found himself holding his wrist, finger over Michael’s mark, squeezing tight after every warning pulse; it was too late to turn back, no matter what was happening in R&D. 

_Help is coming. Help is coming. Help is coming_ , he tried to project. 

The cart stopped, Alex bracing himself so the box didn’t move oddly.

“A second pickup?” came a male voice; _one of the two security guards out front of the R &D lab. _

“Colonel’s orders -- apparently his boy in there spilled something everywhere and they need fresh uniforms.”

“Why the mad scientist of his keeps such strange hours, I’ll never know, but he's always up at midnight and can’t be gotten up before 10am.” The sound of a badge being scanned; a long moment; an affirmative _beep_.

“Alright, Patrice, you’re good to go.”

“I’m going to drop it off, let them drop their things in and pick it up in the morning.”

“Fine by me.”

The sound of the metal door opening, Ms Shapiro’s hard breath as she tucked the go box against something solid. _Hopefully the legs of a table so I can get out without knocking the box over_. 

“These are for your next load.” He heard her say to someone in the room, voice even and professional.

“That’s fine,” and Alex’s entire body stiffened, teeth biting down like he was preparing for a belt, back already aching as he heard his father’s voice live for the first time in a month. “Thank you, Patrice.”

“No problem, have a good night, sir.” 

Alex felt her step hard on the wheel locks; knock on the secure door; the moan of the hinges as it opened; her comfortable sneakers against the polished concrete as she left the room.

There was a long silence, Alex’s connection to Michael screaming but his body unable to move, hoping if he just waited another minute, his father would leave, he wouldn’t have to do what he’d prepared to do. Alex strained to hear any sign of life from Michael.

“You can come out of there, son.” The Colonel said. “You need to face the consequences of your actions.”

Alex counted his guns, his knives, his tools.

“Or do you not want to say goodbye to Dr Truman?”

There was the sound of an antique revolver's safety being cocked.

Alex shoved himself up, finding and bracing his hand on the table beside the cart and vaulting over the side in a precise arc, landing with his gun pointed at his father. The man in the opposite corner of the lab, a bank of security monitors on the wall beside him showing the barracks, the time chamber, the laundry room, and the parkinglot; his shoulders were square and his great uncle’s pistol pressed to Michael’s forehead.

Michael.

 _Michael_.

Michael, who was cornered with his hands raised, back against a wall of metal cabinets; Michael, who was wearing a soft-looking henley and a split lip; Michael, whose eyes were whiskeyshine as they met his, love and terror and rage and protectiveness all warring in them. Alex felt their bond, warm and tight and _real._

"Hey, love. It's good to see you. I knew you'd come." Michael said, struggling to keep his voice even.

"It's good to see you too," Alex said, breath high and tight in his chest, "I love you."

“Disgusting.” His father said, and Alex snapped his eyes back to him, mind going flat. The Colonel was wearing his uniform, even though he should have been well-retired by now if he kept his word. _I don’t know if my family has a code._

Alex swallowed, and began walking around the tables in the lab, closing the distance.

He forced his voice to stay even, reasonable: “Let him go, Dad. I’ve notified the Congressional Oversight Committee, they’re going to be sending inspectors tomorrow. You don’t want to make this any worse than it already is.”

He was 10 steps away now. He took another step, feeling a flood of grounding comfort from Michael.

9 steps now.

“You _really_ think they’re going to listen to the little boy who’s the reason we couldn’t stop 9/11? Who couldn’t stop Benghazi, had to rely on some _aliens_ to do it for him? Whose _legacy_ is the creation of pop stars from no-value countries and education of girls who will never amount to anything?” 8 more steps left. “You’ve done _nothing_ , Alex. _Nothing_.” Alex’s steps faltered.

Michael hissed in Libyan-accented Arabic: “He’s full of shit, love. Don’t fucking listen to --” and the Colonel pressed the long muzzle against his lips, Michael swallowing the rest of his words.

“We’re in America, Michael. We speak English here.” His father said, tone sing-songy, eyes locked on Michael. Alex took another step. Alex hadn’t heard that unstable tone from him before and it made him viscously suppress a shudder; he had never been able to count on his father for love, affection, direction, or comfort, but Alex had always been able to rely on his control. If that was faltering --

Alex took two more quick steps. 5 more to go. 

“There’s cameras in here too, Dad,” he said, keeping his voice level, even and watching the monitors. Flint had just entered the lab with the time chamber, searching for Alex. “If you kill one of your own scientists, after the Congressional Oversight Committee just received an audio file of you attempting to kill one of your own Time Agents, it won’t go well for you.”

“Flint will destroy the tapes. He’s a good son.”

“Flint has other problems on his hands -- look at the time chamber feed.” His father glanced up at the monitor, then stepped back from Michael to get a better look.

It was worth a second glance.

The time chamber was completely empty -- except for a silvery-skinned robot snake, gently curled around what was obviously, even on this fuzzy military-issue monitor, a hand grenade. 

Alex took a slow step forward -- only 4 more until he could get between the gun and Michael: “That’s the grenade the men you hired in Freetown handed me to hold for 6 hours, Dad,” Alex said, taking another slow step as Kyle held up the hand controller for the robot snake, forcing Flint to stop walking towards him.

“If Kyle activates it, the snake will crawl, pulling the pin, destroying the only working time chamber the United States has.”

His father glanced over to where he’d last seen Alex, before sliding to where he stood, only 3 steps away from Michael.

“Even _you_ wouldn’t dare destroy the only thing that makes your life have value, the only way you can possibly make-up for all the trouble you’ve caused since the day you were born.”

Alex could see Michael’s mouth opening to spit back a reply, but Alex caught his eye and gave a slight headshake. The Colonel's eyes darted back to the monitor as Kyle gestured wildly with the controller. Alex took another slow step. He was now even with his father’s revolver, a meter away from Michael but still aimed at Michael’s head. His finger was inside the trigger guard.

“Kyle won’t pull the pin if Michael tells him not to. In a moment, he’s going to ask Flint to call the security team to the time chamber. Then Michael and I are going to walk out of here.”

Alex took another step, then pivoted, shoving his body between his father’s gun and Michael’s body. A feeling like water after a long, hot night in the desert sands alone moved across him; the .45s that gun was loaded with couldn’t kill Michael if they went through Alex’s skull first. _Michael was safe._

“No.” His father turned his icy eyes back to him.

Alex blinked; he could feel Michael move behind him, so close but still not touching: “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“'No: both of you aren’t going to walk out of here.' Pick.”

Alex frowned, keeping his gunsight aimed squarely between his father’s eyes: “I don’t understand.”

His father’s face twisted, and Alex didn’t know how he could have missed it before, the card-scattered madness behind those cold eyes. Held together by pride and rage and remembered-fear, without his powerbase to make him pretend at reason, in this midnight lab he was an unpinned grenade; a bottle ready to blow; an uncontrollable weapon.

“I’m not letting you both walk out of here. I’m losing a worthless son or a traitorous but brilliant scientist tonight. I won't be losing both."

Alex eased the final step back -- and Michael’s hands pressed against his back. Alex had to use every bit of self-control in his possession not to sag against their welcome pressure, the connection they promised. He took a long breath, savoring the comfort, the warmth, the sheer animal pleasure that came from feeling Michael’s hands on him, even in this horror show of a moment.

Then he said: “Let Michael go; I’ll stay.”

Michael flinched, and stepped into him, wrapping a protective arm around Alex’s chest, his palm pressed squarely over his time device.

Alex felt the device _pulse_ , light flaring in his peripheral vision, beating like a second heartbeat against Michael’s palm; _one beat, two, three._

The Colonel's voice was a long ways away: “Fine, you can have one last of your ridiculous deals --” and Alex closed his eyes as his father aimed the pistol between his eyes. If his last view of this world couldn’t be Michael’s face, it sure as _shit_ wasn’t going to be his _fucking_ father’s. He concentrated on the feeling of Michael, warm and whole and solid behind him; the way he was holding Alex so close, like when they were in the tent in Libya, like when they were on the bike in Doha and the bed in Pittsburgh and against the brick wall in Boston and in their laundry room in Roswell. Like he’d never have to feel pain again. He pressed through their bond, as hard as he could think it before the bullet flew: _I love you_.

And he waited.

After a long, long breath, he heard: “I love you too.”

Then Michael whispered in his ear. “Alex, love, you can open your eyes.”

Alex blinked his eyes open. The Colonel still stood, right in front of him, finger on the trigger, blue eyes wild.

Frozen.

Alex blinked again. The antique revolver floated gently away from the Colonel’s grip, circular magazine popping open and each bullet unsheathing itself to float like electrons around the nucleus of the weapon. Then, together, they danced over to a lab table, laying themselves on the metal with barely a click, bullets forming a little rosary around the Colt Buntline.

“Hold still, just for a moment for me, love,” Michael murmured, and he stepped forward, nudging Alex forward with him. He kept his palm on the implant, his other reaching past Alex to press, full and factual, right over Jesse Manes’s heart.

Michael’s hand glowed, a Southwest sunset orange bleeding to a magmic red to a star's heart's white heat. Alex heard Michael’s breath hitch, watched him hold his grip -- and saw the life sift away from his father’s unblinking eyes, like a weapon being buried under desert sand.

The haze from Michael’s hand faded; his father’s body grew slack in what Alex could now see were the confines of Michael’s powers. When the light was entirely gone, Michael pulled his hand away and took a step back, pulling Alex with him. He let the man’s limp body crumple to the floor.

Then he spun Alex around, hands frantic as he checked him over. “Are you ok, did he hurt you, oh God, Alex, I’ve been so worried --”

And then Alex had a trembling Michael Truman in his arms, hands tight on his back, and body so, so, perfectly safe, perfectly there.

“Michael, love, I’m,” and _fine_ would not come out from behind his teeth. He gulped, and tried again, hooking his chin over Michael’s shoulder to hold him closer. “Michael, I’m perfectly --” and again. He his next breath hitched a sob, hating it but needing to turn, needing to see that his father hadn’t moved, hadn’t come back to life, wasn’t about to take this all away from him, the way he’d taken _decades_ of his life.

Michael let him turn and then carefully gathered him back into his arms, hands gentle on his back. Alex buried his face in Michael’s shoulder, gasping: “I’m not fine. I'm not injured but I'm not fine.” Alex took a shuddering breath. “I would have -- I would have killed him, Michael. For you. I -- I planned it. I armed myself. I was _ready_ to --”

Michael shook his head, his curls wild from a month of military showers and none of his special lotions and potions. His voice was low as he murmured: “You can’t be expected to both survive your monsters and kill them. No universe would be so cruel.”

Alex swallowed, feeling wetness on his face. He felt himself shudder once, twice -- and he forced himself to stop. They would have time for this later.

“Flint’s going to call off the guards in a moment." Alex glanced up at the monitors. "Looks like he's still arguing with them. Kyle was going to signal to Max to shut-off the power, but if you’re up for it, could you incapacitate the guards, hold them still like you did my -- like you did _him_? Long enough for Kyle and I to lock them in the lab?”

“As long as I’ve got you, I can do anything.” Michael said, and Alex could hear a grin in his voice, though he was still keeping his wet face pressed to the warm skin of Michael's neck. “In this case, literally. I, uh -- and sorry after-the-fact for the undiscussed medical intervention -- that orange serum I had them send you to 2008 with, it _does_ help with your healing, but when pumped through the veins of a Time Aware person wearing my new version of the time device, it is _also_ the antidote to the power suppressant the Time Agency was using on me.” He pulled back, searching Alex’s eyes. With a soft look, he used his powers to pull the sleeve of his henley over his thumb, and dabbed under Alex’s eyes. “I didn’t know how else to make sure that when you got here, I could help us _both_ get free. But I’m sorry I couldn’t talk about it with you beforehand.”

Alex swallowed. “And -- uh, the visits? Did your device enable those too?”

Michael smiled, shaking his head: “That wasn’t me. I think that was built in from the start -- since 1947. Every time device ever implanted had the _potential_ to connect two people across _timelines_ , across _lives_ and _cultures_ and _violence_ and _hate_ \-- if those two people really needed each other. Could learn to love each other. If there was a timeline, just one, where they would sacrifice their lives for the others’ people, where they would build a happy life together -- where, at the end of the day, the people who crash-landed in Roswell in 1947 and the people who found and captured them could finally live in a shared and just peace.”

“I can’t have been the first human who loved an Antaran that way, who could build that kind of future,” Alex said, mind spinning with disbelief.

“Can’t you?” Michael said, brushing his bare thumb under Alex’s eyes; the tears were dried, so this was just a tender touch, a loving reminder that Michael was here and safe and _with him_. “You, who grew up with a mother who knew what it was to be invaded and beaten down and to keep fighting with every last inch of her soul? You, who grew-up seeing the worst of what your country had to offer and still finding the best in it and every place you ever lived? You, who had no reason to trust, no reason to love, no reason to try to save someone else -- but who, when it did nothing to serve you, kicked down the _fucking_ door to save an 8-year-old from a beating?” Michael’s smile was shifting and soft. “You’re something extraordinary, Alex. Just by being you, you changed the world.”

Alex buried his face in Michael’s shoulder, unable to respond to the flood of words and feelings and overwhelming affection he could feel pouring from the man in front of him, hoping someday he'd find the words.

The intercom system crackled and Alex heard Flint’s voice: “Attention, all security staff to the time chamber for a non-emergency meeting.”

"Looks like he got tired of arguing with Kyle." Alex murmured. Alex heard the men guarding the door shift on their feet, then the sound of heavy boots on polished concrete. He took a breath, getting ready to move, when a thought occurred to him.

“What are -- what are they going to find happened, to --” his eyes shifted towards Jesse Manes’ body on the laboratory floor, “to him.”

“Oh,” Michael said, glancing down at the corpse. A flit of dark humor moved across his face before he suppressed it. “He was 'healed incorrectly.'”

Alex frowned: “How 'incorrectly'?”

Michael looked at the ceiling, like he was counting ceiling tiles, an unkind smirk tugging at his lips: “Well, I figured he’d been ruining your life since you were 2, so I de-aged his heart back to that of a 2-year-old boy’s.” He shrugged. “Looks like there really are some places a 2-year-old’s heart really shouldn’t be.”

Alex gave a huff of humorless laughter. “Ok, that’s pretty good.” He turned and laid down his gun to take Michael’s hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“We’re going through the lab with the time chamber, right?” Michael said, following along with him and interlacing their fingers.

“Yeah, we’ve got to get Kyle out. The rest are outside.”

“So you like Kyle?” Michael said softly as Alex eased the door to the basement corridor open and checking to make sure it was empty; it was. “I knew he had the best chance of getting close to you, given what you’d told me of your home life, but I wasn’t sure how you’d get along. Izzy and Maria said he was kind of a dick in high school.”

Alex giggled a little, stifling it. “He’s a good man; a good friend. After you, he’s the entire reason I was even capable of standing up to -- “ he took a breath, “-- to my father. To Flint. To _anyone_ outside of a mission. He’s the only reason I would think I _deserve_ to.”

Michael squeezed his hand as they hurried down the corridor. They made it to the laundry room, but it was empty; Alex was glad Ms Shapiro had headed home and out of the line of fire. They took the stairs, and Alex knew the stress and the tension of the day would make his leg a pain to deal with tomorrow; but other than a call with members of the Congressional Oversight Committee, he had nothing else planned. _Except some quality time with Michael,_ he thought, and his heart gave a flutter.

They slowed in front of the closed doors to the lab. “Can you freeze them from here or do you need line of sight?”

Michael turned his back on the shut doors, placing his hand over Alex’s device; that same rushing, flushing, flooding feeling moved warm and homey through the device and into Alex’s veins; he wondered if there was a half-life on the antidote or whether Michael caressing that bit of alien tech would always make his blood run hot and sparking.

“I can freeze them all from here.” Alex could hear murmuring from inside, something like Flint trying to argue Kyle into submission. “In 3, 2, 1 -- “ and Michael sucked in a hard breath. Alex reached around him, and nudged the door open. It swung wide, revealing Kyle, standing in the middle of the lab, robot snake controller in his hands, eyes flashing white as he glanced at the three security officers and Flint Manes, all frozen still as gesticulating statues around the lab. 

Alex called out, humor bubbling in his voice: “It’s been kind of a long day and I’m not sure how long Michael can hold this, Kyle. You want to get the robot snake, the grenade, and the controller and get out of here?”

“Uh, sure,” Kyle said, maneuvering around one of the frozen soldiers. “They can still breathe, right?”

“Yep,” Michael grunted, strain showing on his face even as his palm stayed gentle across Alex’s chest. “They’ll be just fine. Want to hurry it up a little, though, Valenti?”

“Ok, ok, Truman, hold your horses,”

“I don’t have any horses, you’re thinking of Iz.”

"Actually -- can you open their mouths?"

"Sure," Michael said with a grunt. Alex watched as Kyle opened up the bottle of knock-out pills he'd brought back from Hebron, putting one in each of the soldiers' mouths.

Then he called out: "Closed please."

He watched for 30 more seconds as Michael's breathing grew ragged against Alex's chest and Alex struggled to stay mission-focused.

Then Kyle called: "Alright. They're out."

Michael released them, letting the soldiers sag gently to the floor. Kyle strode out of the lab, backpack packed, swinging the doors shut and locking them from the outside. Then he, Michael, and Alex all booked it towards the parking lot.

As soon as they reached the fresh desert air, Alex and Michael were enveloped in a massive hug, and Alex wasn't sure where Rosa, Liz, or Max began or ended. Once Rosa started cussing Michael out in roughly muttered Spanish while wiping her tear-streaked make-up off on his shirt, it got a little easier to tell.

Finally, Liz shoed everyone back to their respective vehicles and the two trucks headed towards the gate.

Michael glanced around, looking for their ride and Alex jerked his head towards his red sport-bike. He watched Michael’s face break into a massive grin. Alex swung his leg over the saddle and Michael tucked himself tight against his hips, thumb brushing over the device in his chest, other arm tight around his waist.

“Just like in Doha?” Michael murmured in his ear, lips making Alex shiver in the warm night air.

“Even better,” Alex said, handing him a helmet. He twisted around, pressing his mouth to Michael's and enjoying the sharp intake of breath, the warm way he surged forward, in front of the Time Agency and any watching stars. He pulled away to whisper against his lips: “Because from now on, we have all the time in the world.”


	45. Alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost all of the missions I sent Alex on in this were inspired by the Action Plans that participants in the US State Department’s TechWomen program. You can read the 2019 action plans here. If you're interested in supporting any of these ideas or getting in touch with the awesome women who came-up with them, please DM me and I'll do my best: https://www.techwomen.org/program/2019-action-plans

As soon as he was sure no one from the Time Agency was following them, Alex took the shortest route possible to Michael’s house. Through the bond, he could feel Michael buzzing, something warm and fizzy and real there. His fingers rutched up the fabric over Alex’s stomach, pressing his palm to the soft skin, not diving lower or stroking higher, but like he didn’t want to go another minute without touching some skin now he had the chance. Alex took the turn onto Michael’s long drive slowly. He was grateful for the acres of empty land around them; they were alone beneath the stars.

He killed the engine and yanked his helmet off his head in the same gesture, grinning as he twisted around to find Michael doing the same. Then Michael’s fingers were in his hair, palms on his cheeks, kissing him -- and Alex opened with a groan, grateful in a bone-deep way to know Michael was here and safe and in his arms. Alex didn’t think he ever wanted to breathe again if it meant stopping this, this flood, this torrent -- not just of taste and touch, but of _feelings_ through their bond, love and want and loneliness and fear and hope and comfort, all pouring through the bond like a monsoon rain rushing down a wadi.

 _The thing about desert plants like us_ , he thought dizzily, _is we wait until there’s water and then grow as fast and as far as we can while we have it._ Michael was his summer rain, his promise of hope.

Alex let Michael take the balance of the bike as he hitched his right knee up across Michael’s thighs, twisting so he was half in his lap and letting himself get both hands on Michael’s back. He slid his palms down, worked his thumbs into the dips of Michael’s hips as he held on tight, feeling the warm swell of him, their sweat mingling with the sagebrush. 

Michael opened wider and Alex tasted the copper of his split lip, frowning a little at the remembered hurt. Michael made a small sound, surging closer to him. Alex took a breath, slowing them down, ghosting his fingers up Michael’s ribs -- and felt them, closer to the surface, his body thinner than he’d ever felt. He remembered seeing Michael’s ribs when he was 8, small and scared and lying on the ground, and he pulled back, bracing his forehead against Michael’s so he wouldn’t think he was going too far off.

“Before,” Alex breathed, “before we get a lot further, because I _do_ want to go further, as far as you want to,” and Michael moaned in agreement, fingers tightening lightly in Alex’s hair, “I want to check you out. Are you hungry, thirsty? Is that split lip your only injury or should I call Kyle, get him back here?”

Michael was shaking his head before Alex could finish speaking: “Do _not_ call Kyle --”

Alex brought his hands up between them, tracing his fingers across the split on Michael’s lip, voice distant. “What did he do to you?” He felt himself blinking, his heart racing, remembering a dozen, a hundred times he’d had hurts like this, tried to hide them like this --

Michael caught his hands, rubbing his thumb across Alex’s palm, friction warm and soft and grounding. He kept his voice low, easy; factual: “He saw you talking to Ms Shapiro on the monitor; I’d been keeping out of his way since work was over, staying in what passed for my bedroom in the operating theater. He asked me to come out, as a witness or some other kind of fucked up thing,” and it brought Alex a spark, a lightness to hear someone else dismissing the Colonel, not kowtowing to him. Michael kept going: “He guessed what you were going to do, started ranting. I -- I didn’t want you to have to fight him; I saw how you were armed, guessed what plan you’d ended on. So,” and he looked a little embarrassed, “I tried to clock him.”

Alex raised his eyebrow, imagining Michael trying to attack his father. He blinked, trying to force the image away, focus on Michael in the here and now. 

Michael continued: “It didn’t work; he was expecting it. Not like Flint. Anyway, he punched me, knocked me down, and then pulled the gun. I figured discretion was the better part of valor after that, at least until I could back your play.”

Alex’s voice was soft when he said: “I’m glad you did. I don’t like to see you hurt. Are you ok to heal yourself?”

Michael shook his head: “Healing takes a lot more work than a little TK and I’m pretty tapped out. The antidote will take a while to work its way through my system.” He gave a quick smile, careful of the cut. “I’ll be fine.”

“Or,” Alex started, reaching into his pocket where he’d stashed his medspray. He held it up and Michael’s eyes twinkled. Alex asked: “Close your eyes for me?”

Michael did, and Alex sprayed it over the cut, watching to make sure it closed properly. The skin glowed lightly, giving Michael’s mouth a touch of starshine.

“Anyplace else?” Alex murmured, eyes tracing every plane and curve where Michael’s face was gilded by moonlight, eyelashes soft on his cheek.

He opened his eyes with a smirk: “No, the bruises from the fight with Flint are long-since faded.”

Alex blinked hard as he put away the medspray. “Kyle told me you kicked his ass.”

“Yeah, I did,” Michael said, but behind the bravado, he felt thready. Alex leaned in, brushing a kiss across his cheek, then his other cheek, and his forehead and the feeling faded. “Let’s get you inside, huh?” 

Alex felt a flash of panic through the bond and pulled back.

“What --”

Michael sighed, rifling his hand through his hair. “I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to be inside. Not just right now.”

“Oh,” and Alex thought of the windowless room in the basement of the Time Agency; of the bright, big windows in Michael’s house, in the Pittsburgh loft, in the house in Doha. He carefully cupped Michael’s face, stomach swooping as the other man closed his eyes, catting into the feeling, anxious flash fading: “Maybe we could camp out under the stars tonight?” Michael’s eyes opened, something like gratitude warming them as Alex continued: “We can make-up a bed in the garden, on the arroyito -- the ornamental wadi -- under the palo verdes; pull the cushions off the couch, pile up the blankets, bring out the sleeping bags I saw in the garage on top of the spare ‘fridge. We’ve got 5 hours until dawn, enough time to get some rest, see how you’re feeling then? I’ll heat up some of those fucking amazing meals you cooked while you were ‘nesting.’” 

“That sounds amazing, love. Thank you.” He swallowed, looking down: “I might be fine to go inside; I don’t want to spoil all the things I planned just because --” he didn’t seem to have good words for it but Alex ran his hand up Michael’s spine, tucking his fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck.

“You sharing that something might be too much for you because of the serious trauma you were undergoing less than an hour ago gives me time and space to admit the same kind of thing when my fucking cornucopia of issues begin to spring up. Not ‘if’: ‘when.’ You deserve safety and comfort and --” he looked up at the arcing starscape rioting above their heads, voice getting quieter: “-- I think it would be nice, on our first full night together, to keep the stars company.”

Michael gave him a slightly shaky smile: “That sounds perfect.”

“Damn right,” Alex said with a smile. “How about you get the sleeping bags and any other gear you want out of the garage -- you can use your TK so you don’t have to go inside; I’ll get the food heated-up and bring out the cushions and the blankets.”

“We should have the jollof rice and the baklava,” Michael said, sounding steadier, “I know you’ll love it. And,” and Alex could have _sworn_ he felt Michael’s cheeks heat up. “The nightstand has what we’d need for, uh, any other activities.”

Alex grinned: “My condoms and lube are back at Kyle’s place, but I should have figured you’d be prepared.”

“I’d planned everything,” Michael said, sadness creeping into his voice. “I wrote you about it in the letters, I had this whole --”

And Alex pressed a kiss to his temple as the cool desert wind flitted through their clothes: “I love you. I’m here for _you_. We’ll camp out, sleep in each other’s arms, and then see what the dawnlight brings, alright?”

“Yeah,” Michael said with a nod. “Yeah, ok.”

They disentangled themselves, walking hand-in-hand around the adobe wall, chuckling as they stumbled through the sagebrush, feet catching on the still half-finished job Alex and Rosa had done clearing the tumbleweeds. 

“You know Rosa had me come here, help her clear the land for the garden?”

“She did _what?_ ” Michael squawked. “Kyle said she was keeping an eye on the place while I was at the Time Agency, but -- “

“I think she wanted me to have a connection to you, to this place. She didn’t know about the Time Agency at all, thought we were doing some kind of ‘star-crossed lover’ thing,’” and Michael shook his head, bumping his shoulder into Alex’s. Alex shared his smile. “Anyway, I think she believes in sweat equity;” he hurried to add: “She didn’t let me in the house, but I did get to see the garden.”

They stepped into the back garden together, curving past the arroyito overshadowed by the green-barked palo verde trees. The sidedoor to the garage was on the same side as the olive trees. Now Alex wasn’t panicked, he could see in the moonlight that the olives were the centerpiece of a small Mediterranean garden with a wilding flagstone path down the center. Alex had the rough idea that the driveway used to lead into the garage, but then Michael built the adobe wall around the house. The wall protected the house from highway noise, meant Michael could use his TK without anyone seeing, and, Alex expected more importantly, its shade and coolness created a microclimate for the olive trees, sheltering them from the winds and constant desert sunshine. 

Alex paused beside one of the olive trees, hand drifting to touch its gently-sweeping grey trunk, branches carefully pruned above their heads. He looked down, the moonlight showing strong roots going deep into the ground. 

“My seedling has about a half-dozen leaves.” Alex patted the bark, feeling his expression growing a little sad. “It’s not gonna be able to catch up.”

Michael made a sound and then Alex was being tugged around, crowded back against the sway of the trunk: “I don’t know about that, love,“ he said, voice oddly casual as Alex gasped at the sudden pressure of his thigh. “These kinds of trees,” Michael said as he guided Alex’s hand to the trunk, body tight against his, holding his palm to the bark, and Alex felt it, felt the life thrumming through it. “They grow to maturity in about 10 years and then they mostly stay the same size and shape.” He pressed a kiss to the soft skin of Alex’s throat. “They can live for _centuries_.” He kissed just behind Alex’s ear and Alex had to stifle a groan. Michael whispered, twining his fingers between Alex’s, his palm like silk after the rough bark: “Like you said at the Time Agency, we have all the time in the world. Give your seedling 10 years, planted in this soil, in this place; it’ll be like it’s always been here.” He pulled back, looking Alex in the eyes. “Like you’ve always been here.” 

Alex felt his heart expand, until he didn’t know how to contain it anymore. He buried his face in Michael’s shoulder and the pressure eased, Michael’s body holding him up as he held on tight, riding out the overwhelming feelings riding and rising between them. After a long moment where the only sounds around them were Alex’s breathing and the light night wind in the olive branches, Michael pulled a little back. He bit his lip: “Food, water, warmth, rest. I’ll get futon and sleeping bags out of the garage, you get the food going and the couch cushions?”

Alex barely got the words out: “Sounds like a plan.”

Michael pulled himself away, fingers trailing along Alex’s sides before he turned to the side door. He waved his hand and the door opened, the light flipping on. Without going inside, he gestured and Alex saw piles of stuff beginning to sift themselves around, filtering away from the sleeping bags that were probably buried in the mess.

Alex took one step back, then another, then another, then forced himself to turn around and walk normally away and not keep staring at Michael. Once he could see the wooden table and its two chairs, slipped out his house key with both of their names on it and flicked on the light. It looked the same as when he’d cooked for Kyle and Rosa; almost the same as when Flint had kicked-in the door. He turned on the oven, slid two helpings of the bright red jollof rice onto plates and covered them, and slipped them in to heat. Then he turned to the couch, beginning to pull off cushions to soften the rain rounded rocks of the arroyito. 

He thought about how the other benefit of nesting outside was it gave Michael a minute to himself, to have some privacy and quiet in his own space. A voice that sounded a bit like Kyle reminded Alex that he could, also, probably, benefit from taking a minute to check-in with himself. He’d just seen his first abuser die, had had to prepare himself to kill him, had prepared to die at his hand for Michael. 

He could feel those experiences, those realities, waiting, just at the edge of his awareness. After he slept, ate, had some time to think, he’d have to confront them, have to dig into them in some real and defined way.

But, right now, all he wanted was to hear Michael’s voice, touch his skin -- as much as he wanted to share -- and get to celebrate, at least for tonight, that _they’d won_.

Buzzing in the back of his head was the reminder that he had an 8am EST call with Undersecretary Power and Congressman Wiltson and whoever else they invited. In between loads of pillows and blankets that he was assembling into a roughly queen-sized pile, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and set an alarm to make sure he had time to wake-up for that meeting. Then he put his phone on airplane mode to conserve battery for a night sleeping without a charger under the stars. He took the moment to pull off his time watch, stashing it in his pocket; there was no reason to track the minutes and seconds. Not anymore. He also took a moment to lay each and every one of his guns, knives, and other tools in the pantry, where he could get them if he needed them but they wouldn't weigh him down anymore. 

Michael was still rummaging around in the garage, and he couldn’t feel any distress through their connection, just a steady sense of anticipation and concentration, so Alex went back inside to begin pulling blankets off the bed, palming the lube and condoms.

On the fourth trip out, Alex paused. He considered that given it was a comfortable night out and probably wouldn’t get below the mid-50s and perhaps the knee-high pile he was creating might be a _little_ overboard. But Alex didn’t want Michael to be cold. He finally stopped himself after the sixth pillow and the next time he went back inside he got a pitcher and some glasses of water. Then he plated some baklava from the fridge and snagged the pair of crutches from the pantry, laying them beside the small wooden table.

Feeling Michael still busy in the garage, Alex found a serving tray and knelt to pull out -- _yes_. He’d seen these when he’d been looking for any spare knives Michael might have hidden around the house. A half dozen big mason jar candles that looked like left-overs from one of Isobel or Rosa’s projects. He arranged them in a circle on the tray, lit them from the gas burner on the stove, and brought them outside, setting them on the table. They made the condensation on the cold water pitcher sparkle like stars, glinting off the honey gilding the baklava. They lit the whole of the garden, throwing thousands of the palo verde’s feathery leaves’ shadows across the stones and grasses of the garden. Their gentle crackle and soft smell made Alex’s lips tug into a smile. It looked -- _soft_. 

He heard Michael’s footsteps and turned around to see -- it was like something out of _Fantasia_ , a lightly-bouncing parade of sleeping bags, pillows, and a flopping futon. Michael followed behind, hands lightly conducting the whole mad mess. He froze when he saw Alex, and Alex felt such a rush of affection through the bond he felt his knees go weak. 

“Looks like we’re both in a bit of a nesting mood,” he said, and waved his hand, floating Alex’s pile into the air and settling the futon under it, arranging all of the cushions and duvets and pillows and blankets into a structurally-sound bed, with the Omani saddle blanket carefully stretched across the top.

 _That might be the best-engineered lovenest I’ve ever seen_ , Alex thought, sending his warmth and happiness towards Michael. Once everything was settled, Michael turned to him, beginning to close the distance --

“The food should be ready,” Alex said in a rush, certain that if they touched now, the food would burn to a crisp before they came back to the world. “You can pour the water?”

Michael nodded, eyes bright with suppressed laughter and sat at the table. Alex hurried inside, using the oven mitts to pull out the plates and take off their covers, setting them on the counter to get the cutlery. Forks safely in his back pocket, he brought the plates back outside, steam from the rice drifting in the cool air.

Michael was seated, admiring the nest and the table. He turned a smile to Alex: “This is beautiful -- I hadn’t even remembered I had these candles.”

Alex bit his lip as he set the plates down, tucking the oven mitts under his chair: “I kinda made myself at home, I hope that was --”

Michael’s eyebrows dropped for a second before he shook his head with a smile, waving for Alex to sit. “Alex, if you want it, it’s _our_ home. I’ve got a copy of the mortgage with your name on it, it just needs your signature.” 

Alex huffed out a breath, feeling a smile begin to surface. “I don’t have a credit score.”

Michael picked up his fork. “Well, thanks to you, mine is awesome, so I think we’ll be fine.” Alex reached across the table, gripping his free hand. Michael squeezed back with the same shared strength. He reached his feet out under the table, hooking them around Alex’s non-prosthetic ankle and drawing it up, setting his booted foot in his lap. With his free hand, he slipped his fingers beneath the cuff of Alex’s pants, just laying his palm on the fine bones of his ankle. Alex’s heart rate doubled.

They both dug in, the hunger from the mission and the long night catching up with them. Even as his stomach warmed and his mouth tingled from the spicy rice, Alex kept glancing up at Michael, lit as he was by candlelight.

After the third or fourth time Michael caught him staring, he brushed the back of his hand across his face: “Did get sauce in my eyebrows?”

Alex huffed a laugh: “No, I -- “ he took a breath. “It’s just -- I feel so lucky. Two months ago, I could never imagine --” and he looked around the garden; at the house; at how the palo verde trees' tiny leaves were a constantly shifting screen of the night sky; at the smiling man in front of him. “Any of this,” he finished. “Any of it at all.”

“Well,” Michael said, setting his plate aside. “I’ve had more than a decade to imagine it and I _still_ can’t believe it’s happening.” He took a deep breath, getting caught by a yawn halfway through. Alex gently pulled his foot back to the ground.

“Ready for bed?” Alex asked, beginning to move his chair back -- but then Michael grabbed his hand.

“Only if bed is a euphemism.”

“Think the baklava will keep?” Alex said.

"It should, and if it doesn't, we have more." Then he stood, moving out from behind his chair, eyes careful on Alex’s. “We can just go to sleep if you want,” Michael said, hands carefully gripping the back of his chair.

Alex stood, feeling his chest thrum with anticipation. “Is that what you want?”

Michael swallowed and shook his head. “I’ve never wanted anything more than to be with you in the same timeline, to have more than 1000 seconds, and now it’s here, I,” and he laughed a little, “I can’t decide where to start. What to do.”

Alex stepped around his chair. 

“How about,” he said, stepping in close to Michael, grazing his fingers up the thick side seam of his henley, watching as his breath caught high in his chest. “We start here.” He looked him in the eyes. “I like touching you here. Do you like that?”

Michael nodded, a flush of heat moving across the bond. He mirrored Alex and Alex sucked in a quick breath. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Alex said. He stepped closer, reaching for the hem of Michael’s shirt. “Do you want this on or off?”

“Off,” Michael said, voice quiet. “I want as much skin touching yours as we can get.”

Alex hooked his fingers under the hem, drawing the shirt slowly, achingly slowly up Michael’s sides as he raised his arms, giving Alex room to help get it off. The candlelight mixed with moonlight, making Michael’s skin almost seem to glow. Alex leaned in, brushing a kiss across the big muscle of Michael’s shoulder, then around to his clavicle, and down to his peck. He brushed his hand up Michael’s stomach, sliding a thumb across his nipple as the other man gasped. Michael’s hands were a little less steady, but no less careful, as he gripped the edge of Alex’s shirt, drawing it up and over his head. Alex felt his hair get ruffled all to hell, and Michael smiled, stoking it back out of his face. Then he kept his fingers moving, tracing the fragile bones of Alex’s skull, and Alex could almost hear him thinking about all the times Alex had gotten hurt, had gotten his head smashed on a mission, been nearly caught in the crossfire, all the ways they could have lost the chance at this moment.

“Want to take this to the bed?” Alex asked, voice hushed. Michael nodded and Alex took a breath: “It’s -- it’s a bit of a process. Getting my leg off.”

“Would it work if I sat behind you, distracted you a bit? It might take longer, but it would be fun.” 

Alex blinked: “I -- I hadn’t thought of that.”

Michael pulled back the blankets, pulling the crutches to easy reaching distance. He started to work on his boots and socks, giving Alex his own time to sit.

Looking down at Michael’s bent head, Alex’s felt a wave of affection it was hard to brace against. He lowered himself to the ground, got off his boot and sock, and then reached to undo his pants.

“Can I?” Michael asked from over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Alex said and Michael scooted closer until his hips were flush with Alex’s and Alex leaned back against his bare chest, giving him room to work. Michael slid his arm around Alex’s waist, holding him close while his other hand wandered, slipping up Alex’s chest, just missing his implant, tracing across his collarbone and then back down to his fly. He unslipped the button, Alex sighing at the relief of the undone zipper. Alex braced against his chest, digging his heel into the stones of the arroyito to lift his hips as Michael began to slide the pants down.

“Underwear too?”

“Please.”

Alex’s hands took over once his pants were down his thighs, making quick work of tossing them with the oven mitt under the table.

He felt Michael take a deep breath behind him and he bent his leg up, bringing the prosthetic’s attachment close enough he could settle against Michael again as he worked. 

Michael’s hands slid down the outsides of his thighs as Alex undid the release mechanism. 

Michael kissed his neck as he worked the leg off, night air cool on his scarred skin.

Michael’s hands were careful on his back, exploring each bend and dip of his spine as Alex leaned forward, pulling the silicon sleeve off, turning it inside-out and reaching over to carefully settle it on one of the chairs; he’d need to get his replacements tomorrow from his place. But for tonight, this would be fine. Michael’s arms twined around his waist, drawing him back again.

“So,” he murmured in Alex’s ear. “What’re you thinking about?”

Alex turned catching his mouth and Michael kissed him back with unbanked fire. Alex heard himself make an urgent sound and braced himself on Michael’s shoulders, twisting until he was straddling his lap, Michael’s jeans making his skin tingle.

“I’m thinking,” Michael murmured in between kisses, “we should get under the blankets.”

“You need to take your pants off.”

“Want to help?”

Alex smirked, hands balancing on Michael’s shoulders as he slid off his lap, carefully kneeling on the futon. Michael wiggled until his head was on the pillows, thighs still on either side of Alex’s knees, smile bright in the warm candlelight. Alex reached for Michael’s belt: “Underwear too?”

He hooked an ankle behind Alex’s thigh, settling it at the bend in his knee with a smile. “Yes.”

Alex worked slowly, savoring the way he could feel the hair of Michael’s belly on the backs of his knuckles as he slipped the tongue free, unnotching the prong from the hole before undoing the button. Michael’s breathing was kicking up and Alex leaned down to kiss every new piece of skin as he exposed it to the light. By the time he got to the top of his briefs, Michael was arching up under him, forearm across his mouth.

“You can make as much sound as you want, love,” Alex murmured and Michael shook his head.

“I really can’t -- it’s, it’s all a lot.”

Alex stilled his hands: “Too much?”

“No, God no, Alex, it’s just -- “ and Michael pulled together a smile. “It’s been a long time and a lot of waiting and it’s all kind of a lot -- and I want it to be. I want it to be overwhelming and you and me and wonderful. This,” he said, reaching his hand down to trace over Alex’s cheek. “This is perfect.”

Alex kissed his fingers, letting one of them trail across his tongue, taste warm and spicy, before finishing unzipping Michael’s pants, working with him to slide them off his hips and tossing them to join Alex’s on the pile.

Alex knelt back, hand braced on Michael’s bare hip, and look down at him. He was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen: long limbs, muscles made strong by work, an amazed smile. He was shameless, preening before drawing him up his body. Alex settled between his thighs, tucking an arm under Michael’s head and kissing him, opening himself up so that when Michael arched up against him, he felt the pressure and relief and tension from both sides of the bond. He gasped into Michael’s neck, stomach tight with a growing need.

Alex pressed down, cocks coming into alignment and his body shook, Michael’s thighs wrapping around his hips and grinding up.

Alex forced himself to say, voice stalling in his throat: “I’m not going to last long, if you keep that up.” And Michael stilled, pressing his hips to the futon, taking deep breaths, eyes screwed-up like he was trying to bring himself back from the brink of something.

Alex smiled against Michael’s throat: “Should I take the sudden change in pace as a sign you had other plans.”

Michael nodded, but seemed too overcome to get words yet. Alex eased back down against him, enjoying the impossible expanse of everyplace their skin was touching, the places their bodies touched growing slick in the nighttime coolness.

Michael took a deep breath: “I was hoping to taste you and then fall asleep on you, if that works for you.”

Alex shuddered, body rocking against Michael’s without him giving it a specific order.

“Should I take that as a yes?” Michael teased, already rolling to the side.

Alex maneuvered under Michael until he had full custody of the warm spot he’d made on the futon before leaning up and kissing Michael: “ _God_ , yes.”

Then the man was moving down his body. Alex grabbed big handfuls of the sheets under them, fisting them and trying to keep his breathing under control as Michael kissed across his chest, swiping his tongue over Alex’s peck before giving special attention to his nipple. Alex heard himself made a little hurt sound, the cool air against the peaked flesh nearly painful in its intensity. Michael responded, moving a hand up, thumb gently rubbing over his chest as he kissed the other peck. Alex looked down and then immediately had to close his eyes, the image of Michael, nude and dragging his tongue over his body too much to handle.

Michael kissed his way over each rib, hands finding their anchors on his hips, giving Alex something to arch against as he began to make small sounds of desperation. Each brush of Michael’s hips across his cock and then his chest, each breath Alex could feel coiling down and down his body, was the sweet reminder of what was going to come. Michael kissed the peaks of his hips, fingers tightening, pressing towards his ass but staying on his waist.

Then Alex heard heard a slick sound and glanced down to see Michael licking his own palm and he could have sworn his heart stopped, just for a second. Michael met his eyes, giving him a look of such love and want when he wrapped his hand around Alex’s cock, Alex’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. The feeling of Michael’s mouth around his head -- wet, warm, tongue slick against him -- was overwhelming and so, so perfect. The only thing that grounded him, kept him from floating away entirely, was the bond, the connection to Michael, the constant pulse of desire and want and need and _love_ , always love, pouring out of him.

Michael’s mouth was hot and tight around him, tongue working, hand on his hip encouraging Alex to thrust up, Michael’s hand around his base keeping him from choking him. Alex heard his breathing grow ragged, a small sighing gasp at the end of each breath as Michael hummed in appreciation.

It felt like resonance; it felt like being a struck bell, and the ache in his back and hips and thighs that told him he was getting close began to grow, spine bending with it, hands still clenched cramping-tight in the sheets. Alex tried to slow his breathing, tried to hold out, but the feeling came through the bond, as clear as words, telling him to let go, to let it feel good. And then Michael’s hand slipped just off his hip, fingers curving around the curve of Alex’s ass, and just the thought of that, the thought of letting Michael _inside_ was enough to pull his orgasm free, to leave him moaning his way through it, right into Michael’s mouth, feeling nothing but joy and satisfaction and intimacy and loving coming through their connection.

Michael pulled away before Alex could grow over-sensitive, tipping onto his side, thigh across Alex’s thighs, body a long line of contact, Michael's head on the warm curve between his peck and his shoulder. Michael floated the blankets up and over them, conserving warmth in the desert night. Then the light changed and Alex glanced up at the table, watching as Michael used his TK to extinguish each candle, one by one.

Warm and comfortable under the blankets, Michael tucked safe and warm against him, drifting into sleep, Alex watched the stars through the filter of a million tiny palo verde leaves, gently waving in the desert air. Each feathery leaf would hide a star, and then reveal it; hide a star, and then reveal it. Alex thought about how the light from one of those stars was a million years old, and another was only a thousands years old, but that they were all coming together to show him Michael’s mass of star-silvered curls, snoring gently across his chest. He tried, as he felt his body sinking into deep, comfortable sleep, to thank every single star he could see, hidden and revealed, for the man in his arms, for the chance to love him and to be loved by him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we’re getting towards the end, I wanted to share another meta I wrote about this piece here, thanks to a good question on tumblr: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/625103849336766464/i-have-a-maybe-maybe-not-strange-question-did
> 
> Big thanks to the Roswell NM 18+ Discord for helping me figure out whether "centimeters" was a sexy word or not and keeping company in the live write doc.


	46. when I say

Alex awoke just before his alarm, the quickly dawning desert sky pink and soft above them. He paused, savoring for a long moment the soft expanse of Michael’s skin, the quiet hum of exhausted, comfortable sleep through their bond. Then he pulled himself out of Michael’s arms, tucking the blankets around him, and snagged his phone. He turned off the alarm, grabbed his crutches, and made his way into the house, prosthetic under his arm.

After a quick trip to the bathroom where he cleaned out his sleeve and set it to dry in the tub, he maneuvered to the kitchen. The grab bars Michael had built into the space and the stool made it strangely comfortable to move around with his crutch. _Like it was designed for us to share_ , Alex thought, unable to stop himself from grinning.

Alex rummaged around in the cabinet and found hot cocoa, a special Mayan-style mix with instructions to whisk it like Japanese tea. Alex set the kettle to boiling and checked his time: 45 minutes until he was scheduled to speak with Undersecretary Power and Congressman Wiltson.

His phone was low on battery; even on Airplane Mode, iPhones didn’t do well without their nightly recharges. He headed to Michael’s room to see if he had a compatible charger, but it was a reminder that he would have to venture outside of this perfect bubble they were creating around them to get mundane things like his spare liner and a charger cable. Alex sighed to himself; he hadn’t had the years to plan for how he’d meet-up with Michael, but he’d had a few ideas. None of them had involved seeing his father’s corpse or healing Michael from another potential scar.

Alex found a good cable in the same drawer as he’d found the condoms and the lube and there was -- such a sense of intimacy there. The lube had been new, the condom box still-wrapped -- he wouldn’t have for a second begrudged Michael company, but just looking in the drawer, he had such a feeling that Michael had deliberately and with a scientist’s focus intentionally built them the foundation for a life. It gave Alex a little bit of a shiver, to feel so protected, so cared for.

Alex plugged the phone into the outlet next to the stove, sat on the stool, and refreshed his email; a confirmation from Undersecretary Power and Congressman Wiltson’s staffs that they would both be on the call, along with a separate note from Clara letting Alex know she was bringing in some more staff on this issue. He poured the water into a mug, whisking in the chocolate and taking a sip. It was bitter and sweet in just the right proportion, thick in his mouth and hot in his stomach. He set his phone on the counter, taking another sip, and then opening up his email again.

There was another message, not more than an hour after they’d gotten Michael free. A reply to the first email from Kyle.

> Dear Undersecretary Power and Congressmember Wiltson,
> 
> My name is Dr Kyle Valenti. As Captain Manes noted, I witnessed the Colonel’s attempt to murder one of his Time Agents and made the recording that was attached.
> 
> Since I first joined the Time Agency as an intern 10 years ago, I have known it would need new leadership to achieve its highest goals. In the past few weeks, our increased partnership with the US State Department has produced missions and historic changes greater than any I have ever seen in my time here. Those changes were made in the very brief time that Colonel Manes was not in direct control of the Time Agency and were able to flourish because of his absence -- and in spite of the best efforts of Interim Director Sergeant Flint Manes.
> 
> As I mentioned, I have known for a long time that the Time Agency would benefit from outside, more technical leadership. But it was only recently that I realized how deeply violent and flawed its inner operations have been -- violent in ways that violate the UCMJ and many of our criminal laws. Particularly amongst our very most productive Time Agents, the culture of the Time Agency has been best characterized by fear, abuse, and paranoia.
> 
> I strongly suspect that, in the past few hours, you have received a file that we internally and informally called ‘the portfolio.’ It is a document Colonel Manes wrote only and specifically to undercut his youngest son and top Time Agent, Captain Manes. I believe it is a structured list of what he believed were Captain Manes’ failures. The explicit purpose of this list was to undermine Captain Manes should he ever seek to exercise normal chain-of-command whistle-blowing communication.
> 
> Because the Time Agent in question was too busy literally saving the world to do so, I have taken the time in the past several weeks to solicit, collect, and organize a counter-portfolio: not a list of failures, but a list of recommendation letters from those whose lives and countries were saved by Captain Manes’s actions. He didn’t know I was doing this, nor do I expect him to thank me; but he deserves to be judged on the full balance of his impact in the world and I believe you will find, as I have, that it is as good as he could make it in the circumstances he found himself in.
> 
> By the very nature of Time Travel, some of these stories present counterfactuals that are very difficult to prove. But I believe that both of you know and believe in the Time Agency’s ability to impact our world, so I hope you will take them as they are offered: as a window into the incredible impact our agency has had in the world, using the lens of a single agent’s profound sacrifices in the face of years of deeply unjust treatment.
> 
> As a brief additional note, Captain Manes mentioned a scientist whom you have both met. I would like to inform you that he is now safe and free and may be willing to speak with you once he has recovered. In the meantime, I strongly encourage you to review the attached.
> 
> My very best,
> 
> Dr Kyle Valenti  
> Chief of Surgery  
> Time Agency

Alex felt his cheeks flushing, his mind spiraling; he had no idea Kyle had written this letter, had been preparing anything at all. His heart kicking up, he tapped the attached PDF.

\--

> August 30, 2018
> 
> To whom it may concern,
> 
> I received a request to report on my recollections of a young man who came into my camp just outside of Sarajevo on 27 May 1995, while my unit was tasked with guarding a key route into Sarajevo. He spoke French with an American accent (but better than most Americans), impersonated an officer, and somehow escaped from a locked stone room overlooking a swiftly-flowing river. 
> 
> However, the intelligence he provided allowed us to apprehend a group of Serb soldiers who were wearing French uniforms and had _much worse_ French accents. I do not know if my unit would have correctly identified them without his warning, so I am comfortable thanking this unknown American young man for his role in keeping my unit safe and allowing us to defend our objective.
> 
> My regards,
> 
> Général de brigade Jules Lannes (Ret)  
> Béziers, FR

\--

> August 28, 2018
> 
> Dear STAR Committee members,
> 
> My name is [redacted] and on August 12, 1998 I met Captain Alex Manes on a hot, windy, sunburnt day in downtown Khartoum. At the time, I was the Intelligence Attache to the US Embassy to Sudan and had been tasked with ascertaining whether the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical Plant was 1) controlled by Usama bin Ladin, 2) cooking-up nerve gas. One of my team had cultivated a source we’d believed was reliable and had been duly passing the intelligence he’d provided back to Langley. We’d been gearing-up for a Tomahawk missile strike from a Navy carrier in the Red Sea when Captain Manes approached our compound. 
> 
> His intelligence was accurate, verifiable, organized, succinct, and devastating: we had been wrong. Very, very wrong.
> 
> But he not only told us that, he made sure we had exactly the level of detail we needed to undo our previous assessments, and helped us manage the entire process, working all night through to make sure the right people withdrew the right approvals in the right timeline.
> 
> Throughout this process, he was professional, organized, humble, and deeply, thoroughly knowledgeable.
> 
> I tried to look him up the next time I was in DC, see if we could snag him from whatever sister agency he was slumming it in; he clearly needed better ops support than he was getting, since he ended-up crashing on a cot in our back room and seemed to have a really measely per diem. I could never find anyone of his description; I’m damn glad to have the chance to thank him, here, in a way that matters, for saving our bacon -- and the lives of the thousands of Sudanese people who relied on that plant for medicine.
> 
> My regards,
> 
> [Redacted]  
> CIA Intelligence Officer (Ret)  
> [Redacted], Wyoming

\--

> 10 September 2018
> 
> Dear Congressman Wiltson and Undersecretary Power,
> 
> It is my pleasure to write you today in support of Captain Alex Manes; Dr Valenti approached me at the reception at the Time Agency and I wrote this letter as soon as I arrived home. I am available at your disposal for any additional details that you may need.
> 
> When I first met Captain Manes 12 years ago, he was wearing all black in the Jordanian Spring sunshine; ‘American expat’ came off of him in waves. When he approached me, I thought he was looking for a pick-up; a lot of American men assume a woman traveling alone needs their company. But as we began to talk, I realized Captain Manes wasn’t trying to make time with me. He said something -- I can’t remember it exactly -- but it was about how unfair UNESCO’s treatment of Bedouin people living on the site had been.
> 
> That’s not the kind of detail most Americans pick-up; perhaps it has to do with his own indigenous background, but I think it came from his heart. He truly cares about people. He cares about people who are living, who are dead, who live in places most of his countrymen can’t be bothered to find on a map (apologies to Congressman Wiltson, I know you know where to find Kurdistan on a map, but I believe you and Undersecretary Power may recall in the last Middle East Institute forum last year where your White House colleagues were in attendance and where that was not the case).
> 
> He didn’t lie about being an American spy; he didn’t lie about anything other than that I would never see him again; but I can forgive him this, as I don’t believe he had control over the guest-list for the Time Agency (and I may have traded my assistant a day in Las Vegas for her invitation). Honesty has not always characterized how American men interact with Middle Eastern women, so this stood out for me. In the hours we spent hiking Petra, he treated me as an equal.
> 
> But that is not what I remember most about our interaction, a dozen years later.
> 
> You see, before he opened his bag and showed me the bag of cash, before he spent hours in the desert sun convincing me to change my life, he spoke well of the dead.
> 
> People forget it, but Petra is a necropolis, a place made beautiful to hold the memories of the dead and to allow those still living who love them a place of dignity and sorrow in which to involve themselves with their memories. Its twisting passage ways, its culverts and cubicle, they are places meant for sadness. In our lives today, as we rebuild from a decade of war, we have much need of places for grief. Captain Manes understood that, wanted more of that, some place like this -- he saw the proper respect for loss to be a key part of ending wars. That is not how most Americans think, not how most cosmopolitan rush-and-get’em people think. But it’s why I listened to him; he genuinely wanted to end wars. He spoke of “a more just cause for peace.”
> 
> That is why I spoke to him, listened to him, took his money, took his advice. In no small way, my country stands on our own two feet because of the work of my team, building an economy that raises-up our history and our present and our future, that gives safety and abundance to our people, and most importantly, that comes from our own dreams, our own visions, our own understandings of our own needs.
> 
> Dr Valenti mentioned when we spoke that Captain Manes may be facing some kind of censure because of internal Time Agency politics; all I can say to that is it is a huge waste of an incredible asset to the American Government.
> 
> Let me be clear: what made Captain Manes’s approach to me 12 years ago successful was not the money he brought, or even whatever briefing he received on Kurdistan. It was him. It was his empathy, his bone-deep understanding of our issues, and his real-life willingness to meet me where I was and help me go where I wanted and needed to go. That is not something you can train and it is not something you should throw away.
> 
> I hope these details are sufficient to make my support for Captain Manes clear. Please let me know if there is more I can provide.
> 
> My very best,
> 
> Foreign Secretary Tara Hedayati  
> The Democratic Republic of Kurdistan
> 
> PS: Clara, thank you for the scarf you gave me on your last visit to Kurdistan; I wore it this weekend to the UN and didn’t get a chance to thank you in person. 
> 
> PPS: Congressman Wiltson, my staff informs me one of your legislative aides is taking a sabbatical to get her masters in women’s theology at the University of Erbil; I would be delighted to host her for tea if she is interested in connecting to a friend in the region. I hope to see you again when I am next in DC.
> 
> PPPS: Alex, if you see this -- I know you promised we would never meet again, and as I said above, I don't count seeing you in the Time Agency as a violation of that promise. But I also want to retroactively and categorically reject your promise. When will you be in Erbil next? I owe you a tour of the Erbil Citadel -- much cooler than Petra and with better shopping. See you soon.

\--

> September 18, 2018
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti,
> 
> Thank you for reaching out -- what an unexpected request! Below are the details I recall, 25 years later:
> 
>   * I was tasked with taking Lieutenant Commander Charles to an unofficial meeting with General Aideed in summer of 1993
>   * He was courteous, well-briefed, respectful, and organized. His language skills were exceptional -- I myself was selected for that deployment as one of the very few US Marines fluent in Somali. I served as a Lance Corporal and was brought to active duty out of the reserves specifically for that mission.
>   * I remember he seemed to connect easily and well to everyone we interacted with, even those who started the engagement by pointing guns at us. It is strange, but what I remember most is he made the sailor who drove us to the beach pick-up his cigarette. Said something about not trashing someone else’s country. What a strange thing to remember, because I could not tell you his eye-color or height, but I remember that. Memories are odd.
> 

> 
> That is all I can share. I hope it is helpful. He seemed a fine man and without him, I don’t think I would have spoken to my father again. The story he spun while we were speaking with the General -- about UN Peacekeepers being killed and Delta Force on the streets of Mogadishu -- was an obvious fairy tale, meant to threaten and cow an enemy. There is no way my father would have allowed that to happen or that American soldiers would have permitted themselves to be stranded like that; like I said, an obvious fairy tale. But it may have helped my father choose to exercise his authority, ensure all of his men knew the keep any raids on the UN peaceful. It was why I was honored to continue his legacy and lead his men when he was killed, though it meant giving up my rank in the US Marines. 
> 
> Though my life has taken me away from politics and both my adopted and ancestral homes, I am proud of my service to the United States and to my people in Somalia. I hope one day to return to Somalia when the climate is better, to bring my family and show them the peaceful streets of Mogadishu; unfortunately, the remnants of those who overthrew my father have banned my return. If this letter is seen by anyone who can speak to them about this thing, I would be most grateful.
> 
> My very best,
> 
> Muamur Aideed  
> Addis, Ethiopia

\--

> 25-09-18
> 
> Dear Undersecretary Clara Power and Congressman Joe Wiltson,
> 
> My name is Barkat Dileita and I am the principal of a boys’ school in Eritrea. 13 years ago, I received a grant that allowed me to continue running my school independently, even when certain forces in my community wished to turn our focus away from education. I believe the person who delivered that grant is Captain Alex Manes. A few weeks ago, I was able to attend an event at the Time Agency, which I only speak to you of as I understand you are covered by the same contracts we were requested to sign before entering. I saw Captain Manes arrive and then had a lovely evening meeting women who had grown-up around the Lake Chad Basin: in Niger, eastern Nigeria, western Sudan, the Central African Republic and, of course, Chad. Though Dr Valenti reached out to me, I believe their stories are the ones you might most value in understanding how this grant from the Habemus Tempus Institute changed all of our lives.
> 
> I have taken the liberty, which I hope you will excuse, of reaching out to the women I met at the Time Agency soireé. I had already connected with on WhatsApp and Facebook from that reception. I believe the connection here will be obvious, but to make it clear: I believe these women were invited because, if I had not received that grant, they might have been harmed or forced out of education by those who wished to co-opt my school. These women’s lives would perhaps not be what they are now without that intervention; In my message, I asked them to answer the question: “In one sentence, please tell me about your future”. Here are their responses:
> 
>   1. **Grace Ejeagha (age 25, Nigeria)** : I am finishing my PhD in Computer Science at Baze University in Abuja and looking forward to serving as an assistant professor.
>   2. **Imani Ikponmwenosa (age 19, Nigeria)** : I am in my final year of secondary school and excited to go to Uni in the fall! I love languages and writing and I don’t know, maybe in my future I’ll be a writer or a singer or a diplomat.
>   3. **Tiwa Mamadou (age 18, Niger)** : After getting back from America, I have been applying for an exchange program in English Literature at a university in Minnesota and am very hopeful about it; I want to teach and write poetry and know the world through words.
>   4. **Sosthene Diouf (age 31, Chad)** : I was able to attend the event where we met by taking vacation from the start-up I co-founded with my classmates from Stanford, designing and producing easily-repairable solar-powered mobile charging stations; my future is tied-up with that of my planet, the people in the dwindling Chad Basin, and our ability to get through this period of climate change together.
>   5. **Nikki Wek (45, Sudan)** : I was a school teacher for several of the young women who were invited to the event where we met and they insisted I be able to attend as well; I had taught them in Chemistry and Physics and I look forward to continuing to teach the same until I retire.
>   6. **Nathalie Yanga-Mbiwa (28, Central African Republic)** : I have just graduated Euclid University in Bangui with a PhD in Inter-Religious Dialogue and Diplomacy and look forward to joining the UN Mission in Darfur this summer.
> 

> 
> Without the grant, these women may very well have prevailed; but I suspect their lives and journeys would have been much harder. I, for one, am extremely glad we were able to maintain our educational mission in spite of extremist pressures.
> 
> Sincerely yours,
> 
> Barkat Dileita  
> Bure, Eritrea

\--

> 9/1/2018
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti,
> 
> What a blast from the past! Wow, I had to go and check my wife’s email to see if I wrote her about anything memorable during that deployment. Here’s what she found:
> 
> _Dear Marlene,_
> 
> _Kuwait is hot, the pasta at the mess hall was wet, and I’ve re-read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe  for the 5th time since I got here 3 weeks ago. _
> 
> _Bleh._
> 
> _I miss you._
> 
> _Funniest thing, there’s been this guy on base for a bit with a kid -- not like a 17-year-old-whose-parents-signed-him-into-basic, an honest-to-God toddler. I asked my commander about it and he said to mind my own business. But sheesh, that little kid’s been crying and that Dad is as barky as a pit-bull about anyone trying to get near him. Damn weird situation._
> 
> _But all day yesterday, there was another kid -- maybe your brother’s age? -- and he was carrying the kid around. The Dad was nowhere in sight, but this kid -- a Captain, it looked like -- he was just playing with him, making sure he got some meals kids like, charmed mac’n’cheese out of the cook someway I don’t know how. Anyway, he came by my station, little one on his hip, cool as anything, gave me an updated target briefing. I logged it into the system, he thanked me, and asked if there was any place that might have some softer blankets, since the little kid didn’t like how scratchy the Army blankets were._
> 
> _I know you'll understand -- handed over the one you packed for me with the little rainbows on it from that shop on Ashbury. That beast of a father will probably throw it away, but I couldn’t look that little kid in the face and not try and help._
> 
> _Anyway, I love you to bits and pieces. See you when this is all done with._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Steve Demsky_
> 
> Anyway, looks like he gave me some coordinates in his official capacity, but to my mind, the very best thing he did there was give that kid a taste of normal parental protectiveness and attention. I submitted a complaint or seven about that father of his, but he was off the base again a few weeks later and I never found out what happened. Damned strange and a damned shame.
> 
> Anyway, that Captain seemed like a good kid. 
> 
> I hope this helps,
> 
> Stephanie Marie Demsky  
> San Francisco, CA

\--

> 12-9-18
> 
> Dear Kyle,
> 
> Sure, I’m happy to tell you a bit about Alex. I saw him twice -- once, I thought he’d gotten assassinated in my uncle’s hotel in Freetown and the other time we had a nice coffee in Beirut.
> 
> The first one: Alex checked into the hotel and we had dinner and the dik-diks loved him (but who am I kidding, they love everyone). Then I didn’t see him at breakfast, but when I went to go see if he wanted to check-in for another day, his door was smashed in, his entire room covered in bullet-holes (the building is poured concrete, so they didn’t get out and we couldn’t hear them since I bet they had silencers) and so much blood on the mattress and the carpet. There was even a blasted-apart prosthetic leg there, which has showed up in no small number of my nightmares in the decade since, let me tell you.
> 
> Then I saw him in Beirut like a month later? Healthy and fine, and I freaked out -- a tiny bit -- and we had a coffee. Then we had a dinner.
> 
> Anyway, I don’t know if that could help. I haven’t heard from him since, so maybe his awful father got him after all. That’s who tried to kill him in Salone: his Dad. And I thought my step-Dad was a pain and a half.
> 
> But Baba’s never sent anyone with machine guns to kill me.
> 
> It sounds like you know Alex -- tell him to hit me up the next time he’s in Beirut. I’m working for the World Bank, trying to wrangle our local diamond trade into some kind of ethical order. Tell him I’ll get him a hot cocoa or whatever non-coffee abomination he’s drinking now-a-days.
> 
> In friendship,
> 
> Mena Chantila

\--

> 09/15/18
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti,
> 
> This message is to confirm that I met and liaised with Captain Alex Manes in November of 2003 at Camp Marlboro. He provided vital advice that helped ensure peaceful operation of the Sady City Council.
> 
> Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.
> 
> Chief Warrant Officer Morales (Ret)  
> Boca Raton, FL

\--

> 15-9-18
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti, Undersecretary Power, and Congressman Wiltson,
> 
> My name is Adla Ibrahim and in the winter of 2006 I met Captain Alex Manes. He was the courier for a grant from the Habemus Tempus Institute.
> 
> It was during the war and I’d just had to drive all the way up into the mountains, and I hate driving on snowy roads and I’d been so sorry I was going to be late and --
> 
> I was hard on him. He was young, maybe my little sister’s age. I told him he was accountable for wars he had no way of stopping but I -- it was so much money. I had no idea what strange strings were going to be attached.
> 
> By the way, if you see him, tell him it’s not his fault that we were being bombed. I knew that at the time, it’s just -- it’s so rare to see an American, to actually talk to one who’s willing to listen. I let him have my whole mind but it might have been better to only give him part of it. I don’t know. I hope he doesn’t think about what I said. I hope he thinks about what I did.
> 
> I took the money and came home. I built my prototype; I took it to be a few fairs, a few VC meetings, generally shopped it around. No one wanted to invest. I built one for my uncle; he loved it. Another for his friend. Then his friend. Then his friend’s hotel.
> 
> It -- it wasn’t some lightning strike. One day: trash everywhere. Next day: no trash. But if you come to my city today, trash on the street, it is not the problem. There’s other problems, other things we work on in our neighborhoods; our cities; our lives. But every new apartment block has my trash compactors in them, there’s a lot better recycling than there was, and I made enough money from it all of my nieces and nephews were able to go to college.
> 
> He did a good job, is what I am trying to say. Other people, they might have just dumped the money or stolen some for themselves or tried to get something from me for it. But he just gave it to me. It’s sad to say, but he might be the most trustworthy American I’ve ever met. 
> 
> I hope this letter helps him. 
> 
> With peace,
> 
> Adla Ibrahim  
> CEO Crushables  
> Beirut, Lebanon

\--

> 07-08-18
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti,
> 
> You wrote to ask if I remembered my journey to Oman.
> 
> Damned right I do!
> 
> 20 years later and it still makes my blood boil. That bus driver was out of his mind. Leaving me in the heat in the middle of the desert. I had very strong words with the Omani ambassador when I finally got home. I believe he took my meaning.
> 
> Insufferable!!
> 
> The Honorable Ram Shah, PhD  
> Deputy Prime Minister, India (Fmr)  
> PhD, University of Delhi (Hon)  
> PhD, IIT Bombay (Hon)  
> PhD, IIT Kanpur (Hon)  
> PhD, IIT Madras (Hon)  
> PhD, IIT Delhi (Hon) **  
> **PhD, IIT Kharangpur (Hon)  
>  PhD, University of Nebraska (Hon)  
> PhD, Narsee Monjee Institute of Management and Higher Studies (Hon)  
>   
> 
> 
> _~o~o~o~o~o “The only thing to fear is fear itself” -- The Hon. Ram Shah ~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~o_

  
\--

> 15 August 2018
> 
> Dear Congressmember Wiltson and Undersecretary Power,
> 
> I am writing today in support of Alexander Drossilof. 8 years ago, he came through the Eretz crossing to Gaza. He taught classes in Python programming at Al-Qattan Child Centre. He was thoughtful, kind, courteous. He brought materials we needed and couldn’t get otherwise. When we were bombed, he didn’t panic; he believed me when I said it would be alright. I still see the little USB sticks he brought us floating around the building; I think my sister still has one on her keychain.
> 
> Please tell him he is always welcome here in Gaza.
> 
> Abeer Shurrab  
> Gaza Sky Geeks  
> Gaza, Palestine

\--

> 09-08-18
> 
> Dear Mr Valenti,
> 
> Thanks for writing. Yeah, I remember meeting him, what a little less than 10 years ago? He argued with the commander about using C4. I heard from JAG just this morning about that -- reminded me I needed to reply to your email. You’ve probably heard, but, turns out we weren’t _actually_ authorized to blow the boats. Were just supposed to disable them. Anyway, I submitted my testimony for the old man's court martial. If you don’t mind me saying so, that commander was a royal asshole and a half; I’m glad he’s getting ripped a new one, even if it's too late for those Iranians.
> 
> Anyway, Captain Manes seemed like a good enough guy. Good of him to try to save some lives, when most folks weren't thinking about that. Real big picture kinda guy.
> 
> You know what I liked best? He was real good with the workers on the boat. Treated them like normal, no trying to cheat at poker, no powergames or other bullshit. Once he realized our squad was toxic as fuck, he just fucked off and found some better place to be.
> 
> I wish I’d done that.
> 
> Anyway, I hope that helps!
> 
> Erik Langdon  
> CEO Langdon Security Services  
> Navy SEAL (Ret)

\--

> September 15th, 2018
> 
> Dear Undersecretary Power and Congressmember Wiltson,
> 
> I write you from the Tokyo stage of my Afrikan Renaissance World Tour. This year, I’ve performed before 125,000 people at Coachella, sold millions of copies of my albums, filled countless stadiums -- and most importantly, been a part of the African Renaissance's impact on Chad. When I was growing up, the few pieces of media that mentioned Chad in the English-speaking world started and ended with a joke about our country’s name; in the Francophone world, most interest came from charities, missionaries, greedy oilmen, and men who wished that colonialism had never ended.
> 
> Today, N'Djamena has a fully functional international airport; I and the other artists who have fueled the African Renaissance have funded museums, invested in hotels and roads; we have built a respectful tourism economy that provides work, access to capital, education, and international connections to tens of thousands of my fellow Chadians.
> 
> My country’s name is now a by-word for African music and no longer a joke.
> 
> This is because of tens of thousands of people’s hard work, but my small part of the story includes Captain Alex Manes.
> 
> I have told this story in a lot of different songs -- bits and pieces so as not to embarrass him, as I was never able to find him again --
> 
>   * From “Dark-haired stranger” (2005): _“You slipped through the cafe doors / light-footed and heavy-eyed”,_
>   * From “Miracle” (2007): _“You brought something in your hands / that I would never save / a hope to be unwrapped / a moment to crave,”_
>   * From “Impossible Apocalypse” (2010): _“There’s something happening / that I cannot express / I could not bear to think to leave / if you had told me less”,_
>   * From “Wild-eyed and beautiful” (2010): _“You told me she could come with me / our whirlwind worlds could now collide / she'd take the fight to the big city / I'd be right there beside,”_
>   * From “Stranger in the closet” (2010): _“She heard me singing, you said / like that was enough to turn her head / my voice, my words, my life, my price / you offered me help with no sacrifice,”_
>   * From “Ego” (2015): _“You said that I was worth it / that all my words combined / I could write myself a new history / that the new world could be mine,”_
>   * From “Symphony for a morning” (2017): _“I gave you what I had to give / my mother, the words, not mine / you thanked me like I’d let you live,”_
> 

> 
> I’ve never told the story in-full, because it seemed secret; sacred, in a way. But him bringing me those applications, that simple confidence, and the cash to cover it -- it meant everything to me and my sister. Here’s a verse and hook I’ve been thinking of including in my next album:
> 
> _You said that I would leave_ _  
> __And still come home to stay_ _  
> __You said I could bring my sister_ _  
> __That we would have a home_ _  
> __I knew you were lying,_ _  
> __I knew you were a fake_ _  
> __Who helps girls with nothing?_ _  
> __Who shows up out of the blue?_ _  
> __Who says we’re worth everything,_ _  
> __When it’s obviously not true?_ _  
> __You._ _  
> __Just you._ _  
> __You._
> 
> When my manager forwarded me this email from Dr Valenti, asking if I could share any memories of a man I met in 2002 who brought me a Fulbright application, I thought for a moment that Dr Valenti was the man I had met. That 16 years later, he was a doctor. It made sense, in a way: he seemed like a healer, or someone who wanted to be one. Someone who rejoiced in fixing things, fixing people. It made sense.
> 
> But if Dr Valenti isn’t the man who changed my life -- can someone write me back, tell me his name? Maybe so I can thank him; maybe so I can finally include something that rhymes with his names in my songs.
> 
> Thank you. And please, pass onto him how grateful I am for the changes he made in my life.
> 
> My very best,
> 
> Genevieve

\--

> 09/18/18
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti,
> 
> Thank you for asking me to do this -- it’s pretty rare I get to do anything nice for my fellow Time Agents, particularly our American colleagues.
> 
> As you know, if you’re not a Time Agent or Time Aware for some other reason, you cannot remember the same pasts as we can. So, though you have no way to verify this, I hope you will believe me when I tell you that in the world before the mission Captain Manes and I went on, Egypt was in much, much worse condition than it is now.
> 
> Egypt today is a democracy, with a good social safety net and a strong economy. Egypt before this mission was ruled by a corrupt military after a coups and painful instability. Egypt today is a place people from Iowa and St Petersburg go on vacation. Egypt before this mission had a travel warning for many Red Sea towns after terrorist attacks targeting tourists.
> 
> I’m not sure what kind of trouble Captain Manes has gotten himself in that necessitated this kind of letter, but I’m happy to provide it. Give him my best.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Sergei Pachenko  
> Time Agent  
> Russian Federation

\--

> Dhuʻl-Hijjah 10, 1439 AH  
> 10 Elul 5778  
> 21 August 2018  
>   
> 
> 
> Dear Dr Valenti,
> 
> I hope this finds you well. I must say, we were surprised to see your letter. It seems such an odd question. But we have both gone through our records and those of our predecessors and have found no special events or notes for anything out of the ordinary happening on 25 February 1994.
> 
> Can you let us know more of what you’re looking for? It looks like it was just another normal, peaceful day in Hebron.
> 
> Let us know,
> 
> Imam Mussa Shura, Ibrahimi Mosque  
> Rabbi Michael Greenburg, Cave of Machpelah  
> Father David Habash, Tomb of the Patriarchs

\--

Note from Dr Kyle Valenti:

> 22 August 2018
> 
> Dear Undersecretary Power and Congressmember Wiltson,
> 
> Captain Alex Manes’s last mission outside of the United States was to Yemen in 2003 and had an extraordinary impact on that country’s history. However, because that was only 2 days ago, I did not have a chance to get letters from the 10 people who received grants of $1,000,000 each and have founded schools, diplomatic institutes, conservation areas, media empires, reduced addiction, revived traditional crafts and infrastructure, and saved endangered languages. I believe they would all stand willing and able to vouch for Captain Manes if you need them to.
> 
> I hope this packet serves as an effective counter-argument against any other communication you have received about Captain Manes.
> 
> My very best,
> 
> Dr Kyle Valenti

\--

Alex blinked rapidly, head swirling. The hot chocolate had gone cold in his hands as he'd read. He had no idea what Clara or Rep Wiltson were going to think of all of these letters and he was going to _kill_ Kyle for not telling him he was collecting them, but -- he took a breath.

He couldn't think about the letters. They were too much. He had to be collected, ready for his call in -- he checked the time -- 7 minutes.

He carefully boxed all of the joy and heartbreak and missing and curiosity and wonder and pride and hopefulness in those letters, promising himself he'd show them to Michael, he'd unpack all of those good, under-examined, rich, fizzy, wonderful, warm-bellied feelings together.

The last thought he had as he packed those feelings away was about the Time Agency. About the number of people who had been involved in the Time Agency for Kyle to get these letters, to help Kyle track them down, follow-up with them, translate and organized them -- it was huge. It was -- there must have been a dozen people who’d helped: let Kyle into a database, made a follow-up call, stayed late writing and re-writing a translation until it was right. Their names weren’t on these letters, just like briefings were never signed by everyone who worked on them. But he recognized them, what they’d done, what they’d done _for him_.

He’d felt so alone, for so, so long at the Time Agency.

And he _had_ been, in a very, very real way.

But there had been people who’d noticed, people who’d tried, or wanted to try, to help.

And as soon as they had a moment, a bare chance, a clear invitation, _they had._

He took another deep breath and checked his watch: 5 minutes before the call. He looked out the window; Michael was still face-down in the nest of blankets, morning light making the tan skin of his back glow against the red crimson Omani saddle blanket still covering his hips. Alex opened one of the kitchen drawers, then another; he found a hot pink pad of sticky paper and wrote Michael a note:

> _Hey love,_
> 
> _I’ve got a call with Undersecretary Clara Power and Congressmember Wiltson from now for about an hour if I had to guess. Probably voice only, but I’ll be in the bedroom with the blinds closed; just don’t come in naked :D._
> 
> _I love you,_
> 
> _Alex_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a bit of an odd question, and feel free not to answer it if it makes you uncomfortable. But for those of you who’d never read a story set in Lebanon or Beirut before reading this story, when you heard the news last week about the explosion, did you feel any more of a connection? Did you think of this story? One of my biggest goals as a writer is to help connect people to other people, to experiences and ways of being that are different. I certainly thought about this story as I was frantically refreshing Facebook’s “Checked-in Safe” page for my friends all last week. I wondered if the places I described were covered in dust or broken glass or not. Did anyone else wonder that? My hope is that, by reading this story, you felt a little more connected to Lebanon than you would have before. Maybe it doesn’t work that way for other people, but it does for me.


	47. You've cleaned up

Alex got up from the kitchen counter and took himself to the bedroom, closing the door; someone must have put it back on its hinges after he knocked it down to try to get to Michael. The feeling of that moment -- the terror and helplessness and fear at hearing Michael speaking to Flint, at _realizing_ what that meant, filled him for a second. But then he took a breath. The room still smelled like Michael, like his deodorant and his body, even with the bed stripped to supply the nest outside; it still had his clothes in the open closet, hastily unpacked with boxes packed under. Michael seemed to really have been waiting on fully moving in to check with Alex, to move in _with him._ Alex’s heart clenched at the thought of that, of laying his small possessions alongside Michael's treasures on the shelf. 

He snagged a button-up shirt from the closet, maneuvering on his crutches to sit on the bed to put it on. He thought about using his last 5 minutes to put on his prosthetic, since it sometimes helped him feel more professional, _less vulnerable_ came a voice that sounded like his counselor. But he didn't want to be in a rush and he figured he felt as centered and focused as he was going to get. Anyway, if they insisted on a video call, he looked professional enough from the waist up. 

One last bit of prep: he leaned across the bed, bracing his palm on the bare mattress, giving Michael’s bare back one last lingering look before snapping the venetian blinds closed. He’d told Michael he would do it in his note, so _if_ there was a video call and _if_ Michael woke up, no member of Congress would be treated to a view of Michael parading naked up to the window, which Alex was _certain_ he would do.

Alex’s phone rang with a Boston area-code. On a whim, before answering it, he reached up onto the shelf and snagged the Altoid box that Michael had used to keep his mask in from his first-ever visit, that he'd built a time device inside of, to hold onto evidence of Alex's presence in his life even if Michael’s timestream shifted. Then he picked up the call -- it was Undersecretary Clara Power: “Hey, Captain Manes.” Her voice was quick and worried. “First thing’s first: are you safe?”

Alex took a breath, feeling his lungs expand. “I am, Undersecretary Power. Thank you for asking.”

Her voice was quiet, determined: “I’m glad to hear it. You’re in a safe place? Not under any duress?”

“I’m safe, sitting in a comfortable place,” he said, voice a little confused.

“Good, I’m glad.” The relief was clear in her tone. He heard her take a long breath; he wondered how many people were listening on her end. Then she said: “It’s just you and me here for a moment; this is my private cell. I wanted to check-in before conferencing you into the main line. I just,” she paused. “I know I was pushing. I knew I was pushing the Time Agency and the Habemus Tempus Institute hard, switching up the missions, specially requesting for you to go on them. I hope that I wasn’t part of what led to whatever happened last night didn't stem from my actions --”

“No,” Alex rushed in, “No, Clara, no. This was a long time coming.” He took a breath. ”I had what I needed to get to a better place because the missions you gave us, the needs in the world that you showed us. How you showed me what else the Time Agency could be. Reminded me what we’re supposed to be here for.”

He could hear a wry smirk on the other end of the line: “Well, that’s very sweet of you." He could hear a smile in her voice. “I’m going to conference you into the line in a minute. I just checked with staff, like looks like we’ve got Wiltson, the ranking democratic member, and, I don’t know, 7 committee, State, and office staffers on this.” She paused. “If the ombudsman didn’t show-up until tomorrow, do you believe the Time Agency would be in a better position to interact with them?”

“Yes,” Alex said, thinking of Flint and flinching away from the memory of the Colonel's body. He gripped the box in his hands tighter.

“Alright,” she said. “Got it. I’ll make that happen. Conferencing you in.” A click, then: “I have Captain Manes on the line.”

He looked at his screen: right on time.

“Alright,” Undersecretary Power said. “I wanted to thank the Representatives and their staffs for joining me on the line. We’re intending for this call to be between 30 and 60 minutes. It is 8am EST, Sunday, September 23rd. The purpose of this call is to discuss the leadership transition of the Time Agency. Confirming now that everyone on this call has the appropriate clearances? If you have not already, please submit the names and clearance level of every person on this call to ensure compliance. Also confirming everyone is in a secure location?”

There was a chorus of ‘yes’es. 

Rep. Wiltson jumped in: “Captain Manes, that was a hell of a bunch of emails I got last night. Is everything ok with you?”

“Yes, Congressman, thank you for asking.” Alex said, keeping his voice steady.

He kept going: “When I saw those things your Daddy said, that was a, that was a heck of a thing. Your old man’s a piece of work, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered. He took the moment: “To be clear on the timeline, he resigned as Director of the Time Agency a month ago on August 22nd, 2018. The Interim Director, Sergeant Flint Manes, allowed him to continue to overseeing R&D while he was processing-out. He used that role as Director of R&D, during which time,” he paused. He’d thought about how to say this, but he needed a moment to arrange the words for the listening ears.

Clara Power jumped in: “Congressman Wiltson, do you remember that young man, that brilliant scientist we heard on those panels? The one with the curly hair?”

“I absolutely do. Dr Michael Truman. He was the one who argued that Antarans should be the ones running the Time Agency.”

“So, that’s the young man that Captain Manes was discussing in his letter.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Congressman Wiltson said. “So, the Colonel, he was _making_ him work? Not paying him, keeping him captive? That’s what you meant by ‘under duress’?”

Alex nodded: “It was. And during that time, in spite of God-awful conditions, he quickly applied decades of his own work, using his Harvard medical degree and his Carnegie Mellon engineering PhD to totally redesign the core technology of our program. I’m wearing the modified device as we speak and it functions perfectly -- it represents the first major innovation since the 1980s in Antaran tech.”

Undersecretary Power broke in: “All that, while being held captive and mistreated at the hands of _our_ people, Joe.”

There was a sound of disgust from the Congressman: “Sounds like human trafficking. Absolutely unacceptable. And a potential diplomatic nightmare with Libya if he decides to make it one -- what was your Daddy thinking, holding an Ambassador’s son captive?”

Alex blinked. He didn’t think this was going to be this easy. “I can’t speak to his state of mind, but I can tell you that we’ve ensured the scientist’s release and my father fled the compound -- I believe he was seeking to flee the country.” _Or he will have, as soon as I'm through with him._

“Well, that make things a little easier,” Congressman Wiltson said. “No power struggle then for the Directorship. So, that Sergeant I met, Flint?”

“Yes.”

“He’s your brother?”

“Yes.”

“And he was Interim Director when we visited.”

“Yes.”

“But not Congressionally approved.”

“No, sir.”

“And he allowed this trafficking situation to take place under his nose?”

“He was intimately involved in it and the scientist informed me, with evidence, that he used force to try to try to ensure his compliance.”

Undersecretaty Power broke in: “To be clear, you’re saying you have evidence that the Interim Director, Flint Manes, of the Time Agency, was physically violent with a member of his staff and engaged in human trafficking on government property?”

Alex could hear the tiles clicking down like dominos. “Yes, ma’am.”

“God Almighty,” Congressman Wiltson muttered. Then he said: “That all makes things even simpler. So, Captain Manes, given that I have never in my entire life seen a recommendation packet like the one I saw this morning -- do you _really_ know Genevieve? My daughters are absolutely nuts for her.”

“She was pretty incredible when I met her in 2003.”

“Do you want me to believe,” came a whiny voice -- Alex checked his chat.

A Boston number: "That's Democratic member’s POS Chief of Staff -- former member, lost his race, big shoulder chip"

The same voice kept going: “Do you want me to believe that _you_ , Captain Alex Manes, age 28, were the one who recruited Genevieve to the Fulbright program in 2003 -- how in _God’s_ name --”

There was the sound of a scuffle for a phone. Then a cool, quiet woman’s voice: “I apologize for my aide,” said the ranking Democratic member, “he _did receive the full briefing_ about the Time Agency’s excellent contributions to our shared world and your own, personal, exceptional service and sacrifice. Please, continue, Captain Manes.”

The voice muted again, not before Alex heard the intake of a breath that sounded like the beginning of an in-office dressing-down.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Undersecretary Power said, eliciting a chuckle from the rest of the call. “We were discussing the leadership transition. Congressman Wiltson, what do you think of asking an ombudsmen from your committee to head over to the Time Agency, review the evidence, the tapes, and come back with a neutral report, say, starting Wednesday? And, if you don’t mind, I can make a report to the right people at DoD, to let them pull Sergeant Flint Manes’s clearance and access while the investigation is going on. I’m going to ask that they go to the Time Agency, find him on the base, and hold him at Kirtland until the ombudsman has finished their work.”

Congressman Wiltson chimed in: “Thanks, Clara. If you would talk to DoD, that would be great. The MPs should get him and any of his staff out of there before noon local time if possible to keep them from destroying evidence. For the ombudsmen, I think a bit sooner -- Tuesday?” He paused, probably conferring with staff. “If the flights work out.”

“If you can swing the committee stafftime?”

“No problem,” Congressman Wiltson said, “Charlie Cameron would love to go visit Roswell for a week, right Charlie?”

“Yes, sir,” came a sardonic voice.

“Great,” he said, ignoring the tone. “In the meantime, we need someone to talk to over there. An Interim Director until we get the situation sorted out. Undersecretary Power, any recommendations? I hear you’ve been working closely with them on some big things since we last saw each other.”

There was a pause on the line. “We need someone to keep the lights on while we’re doing the investigation, but I would recommend a pause in operations for a month, to give everyone some breathing room. But off the top of my head, I would agree with the Congressman's suggestion that the STAR Committee appoint a replacement Interim Director.”

“You’re being diplomatic with me, Clara,” came Congressman Wiltson’s teasing drawl. “I know you have someone in mind. You always do.”

“I do,” she said, unashamedly. “Two, actually. I would either recommend Captain Manes, as he has been incredibly responsive and superbly well-recommended, or Dr Truman, as he will have the motivation to fix what is wrong with the Time Agency and it seems like he’s already moved R&D further forward than anyone else has in the last few generations. You’ve heard me make the case before, Congressman, but I think America’s interests would be better served with the Time Agency playing more of a diplomatic and scientific role than a military one.”

Congressman Wiltson’s voice was wry: “Since they’ve cleared so many sins of the past off the board, I can see that. I still can’t believe we had a war in Afghanistan. Why in God’s name would we send our boys -- and girls, and people -- to die in the desert there, I don’t understand. But I believe it,” he hurried to add. “Captain Manes, you don’t need to go quoting KIA statistics at me again, I am well informed.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.” Alex said. And there was a pause. And he knew, this was the place he would slide in, he would thank them for their support, promise he would do a good job for them, fix his family’s legacy, cooperate, be easy to get along with. This is where he would make their lives easier, follow the simple path. _C_ _omply_.

But all he could feel was the smooth curve of Michael’s back under his hands, the morning sun on his back as he slept; how many soft mornings would he have, if he was running the Time Agency? How much time for _rest_? For cooking and planting and reading and _sex_. It seemed stupid -- and there it was, his father’s voice in his head, screaming at him for being _stupid_ and _weak_ and _cowardly_ and _not a real Manes man --_ it felt stupid to turn down a _legacy-making_ career move so that he could have sex with someone he liked. But it was also about having time _to himself_. It was about having time _with Michael._

 _Time to rest,_ came a voice that sounded like Kyle and Rosa and Michael and Ms Shapiro and Mena and everyone he’d ever met who’d wanted the best for _him_ as a person -- not a weapon, not a tool, not a piece on the board -- but as a _person_.

“So, how about it, Captain Manes.” Undersecretary Power prompted. “Are you ok to step-in as Interim Director of the Time Agency?”

Alex swallowed, voice catching in his throat. He gripped his hand around the Altoid box, pressing his fingertip against the hinge, remembering seeing it in his old room in his mother’s house on the Mescalero Reservation; at Michael's loft in downtown Pittsburgh; here, in this sanctuary, before the call with Flint. He flipped it open, seeing the mask, grey with age, and worn with rubbing fingertips. Tucked inside it was the time device, the one Michael had made to hold onto his memories of him, even as their timestreams tried to pull them apart. He looked back at the shelf of treasures, with the evidence of every trip he’d taken since meeting Michael.

Alex took a breath and said: “No.”

Without missing a beat, and Alex could have _sworn_ he could hear a smile in her voice: “And could you connect us with Dr Truman, see if he is interested in that role? It would only be on an interim basis, of course subject to congressional approval. We can speak with him Monday, assuming he needs at least 24 hours to recover.”

“I would be happy to,” Alex said, glancing at the closed window to where he was fairly sure Michael was still snoring. “I’m sure he would be happy to meet you again, though I can’t speak to his answer.”

“Great, thank you Captain Manes. Now, Congressman Wiltson, I had another proposal for you, since we're re-working things with the Time Agency already.” Undersecretary Power said, and Alex caught something sly in her voice. “Right now, the Habemus Tempus Institute is governed by a committee of 7: Clay Manes, Colonel Manes, Flint Manes all served on it, with the other 4 seats made-up of representatives from State’s Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs; State’s Bureau for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights; the STAR Committee; and the Senate Intelligence Committee.”

The ranking democratic member of the committee chimed in: “The Habemus Tempus Institute is the grantmaking arm of the Time Agency, correct? They have some public-facing components as well?”

Undersecretary Power replied: “Yes, ma'am. It has an impressive track record: the last mission to Yemen took $10 million dollars and as far as we can figure unwound the worst humanitarian crisis of that timeline outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Congressman Wiltshire's voice was smug when he said: “That’s right -- and not a dime of the funding comes from US taxpayers. It’s all from the Time Agency’s investments.”

Undersecretary Power sounded like she was biting her tongue, but she replied: “Very true, Congressman. Now, given a third of the board I just named will no longer able to serve for the reasons we previously discussed, I would like to float the idea that we transition to a Director and Agency model, away from a committee model. In the new model, the Habemus Tempus Institute would draw their missions from proposals submitted in-country committees of past awardees. Just like the Fulbright process, where potential scholars pitch their projects to their local embassies and they’re reviewed by past-scholars and agency staff. This would help make the Habemus Tempus Institute more representative of and responsive to the needs of the communities we’re hoping to help. People on these committees would already know about the Time Agency, be the people the people generally invited to post-mission receptions. People who were _from_ those communities and were going back to live in them too."

She continued: "In addition, having a single Director for the STAR Committee to work with would also make it nimble and responsive to the committee. It would also start it along the path to becoming a peer agency alongside the Time Agency, which would help further our shared goal of redirecting the Time Agency’s efforts towards diplomacy and scientific advancement.” She took a quick breath, before anyone could break in. “And I propose Captain Manes serve as the Interim Director of the Habemus Tempus Institute, starting in one month and subject to Congressional approval in the new year. That would give enough time for Charlie to wrap-up the investigation and give Captain Manes a bit of time to get prepped for the new role. I think we can all agree he is eminently qualified.”

Congressman Wiltson took a moment, then asked: “Captain Manes? What do you think?” 

And Alex thought about it, mind moving as fast as he’d ever traveled back through the timestream. He thought about: _no more missions -- no more decontamination process -- no more medical exams -- no more chaotic schedule -- no one almost-dying -- no more killing_. He thought about: _sitting in a bright office and helping choose where to give away money -- evenings with Michael -- mornings with Michael -- vacations with Michael -- time to read -- time to travel to places that weren’t at-war -- time to learn about the world that_ _is_ _not just that_ _was_ _. Maybe even the world that will be._

And what she was saying about in-country committees was -- that was more than he’d ever hoped for. Not just guessing based off US intelligence assessments or State analyses of what was needed for each country, but having a process that allowed for people in that country to dictate how their lives would change. It was a dream -- and he knew his answer.

“Yes.” He said. “I would be honored to help oversee that transition, with the knowledge and support of members of the STAR Committee and State, whose decades of experience with this work can help ensure the future of Institute centers the needs and lives of those most impacted by our work.”

He heard something that sounded like Congressman Wiltson clapping his hands once, loudly: “Wonderful! So, the do-outs from this meeting. Colonel Manes is in the wind and we’ll try to find him if we can, but he’ll have all of his clearances pulled. Sergeant Flint will be found and removed from the Time Agency pending Charlie Cameron’s investigation of Captain Manes’s claims. Members of the STAR Committee will interview Dr Truman to see if he is a suitable Director for the Time Agency in the coming week. And my staff will shepherd through Captain Manes’ nomination to serve as the newly-reorganized Habemus Tempus Institute’s Director with the goal of having him start October 23rd, 2018, assuming the full committee agrees, which I suspect they will. This is all as part of a new, more tech and diplomacy-focused, less military-focused mission for the Time Agency. Did I get everything?”

Alex’s heart was racing.

Undersecretary Power said: “That sounds perfect. The next STAR Committee meeting is Tuesday at 10am, right?”

The ranking member’s voice was clear: “It is, briefings are due tomorrow at 10am. Committee staff on the line, do you need anything else from Captain Manes before we let him get back to his Sunday and well-deserved rest?”

A woman’s voice spoke-up, the same one who had sassed the Congressman. “Captain Manes, can you plan to meet me Tuesday at noon at the Time Agency and make sure security knows to expect me? I’ll have my credentials sent through, but the name on the ID will be Charlie Cameron.”

“I would be happy to. Thank you for coming.”

“No problem, I have family in the area, which is why I know how much of a haul it is to get there. I think you may have met my sister, Jenna? She works in the Sheriff’s Department there.”

“Small world,” Alex said. “Yeah, I think I’ve met her. I haven’t gotten out into Roswell much but,” he found himself blinking hard, vision swimming a little as he kept his tone even: “I think that might be changing. In the future.”

“I hope so too. I’ll see you then.”

Undersecretary Power closed out the meeting, thanked everyone. Alex listened as each line disconnected.

And then it was done.

The room was quiet, empty, peaceful.

He felt lighter than he had ever felt.

For the next month, other than shepherding Charlie Cameron around, he didn’t have any major commitments. No one would be sending him on missions; no one would be strapping him down to give him implants; no one choosing his food or his books or his music or where he slept or who he loved.

The feeling of freedom was dizzying, vertigo-inducing.

He remembered, once, SCUBA-diving in Lake Baikal in Russia. It held about 20% of the world’s fresh water and was over 5,000 feet deep, but it was also so clear he could see hundreds of meters straight down as he swam. It was the only time he’d ever gotten vertigo while swimming; he’d had to hold it together, not embarrass himself in front of the Russian oligarch he’d been tasked with seducing. The end of that call, the decisions that were being made with his input, about his life, after so long with no choices: it was that same feeling of losing his sense of center, his core gravity. But he gripped the metal box in his hand, feeling the sharp edges of it, and then letting it go. He gently wrapping the mask back around the time device and lay on the silvery surface, tucking it into the Altoid box, thumb still on the fabric.

Alex remembered how small he’d felt, on that mission to Iraq, how helpless to do anything but what he was _told_.

And he thought about now. About what he’d just done. About how he’d had what he needed to change his own future, to live his own life.

And he thought about Michael, still warm and snuggled-up in the blankets outside.

He felt a smile rise, blooming on his face.

_We have time._

He closed the lid on the mask, carefully setting it back on the shelf.

Then he texted Kyle: 

> **Alex** : We just had the call. All good stuff. Charlie Cameron is coming to review the evidence Tuesday at noon. I’ll take care of things before then. Flint’s out, the Colonel’s out. I’m going to take today, then head in tomorrow.

Kyle texted right back.

> **Kyle** : Awesome. I’m halfway to Denver; I have my first spa treatment all picked out. But a little birdie/bartender told me you should expect a delivery in, oh, 5 minutes. I hope you’re decent!

Alex was about to text back to ask what the fuck he was talking about when he got a text from Undersecretary Power: “DoD confirmed they’re sending MPs to the base; where would Flint be?”

> **Alex** : He and his security team should all be in the lab with the time chamber. They may have been there all night. The guard at the gate should let the MPs in with the proper clearances.

He labeled her contact, making her the seventh contact in his personal cellphone. She replied as soon as he was finished, thread title updating.

> **Undersecretary Clara Power** : Perfect. That helps a lot. If I can get Dr Truman’s contact info before tomorrow morning, that would be perfect.

And it had been floating in the back of Alex’s head, but he actually had no idea what Michael’s email or phone number were; he’d have to ask.

> **Alex** : Will do. Thank you for what you did on the call.
> 
> **Undersecretary Clara Power** : After everything you went through, you fucking deserve it.
> 
> **Undersecretary Clara Power** : Get some rest.

Alex texted Kyle back:

> **Alex** : *What* should I be expecting? Also, I can’t believe you got all of those rec letters for me.

He took a breath, and typed out the rest of the thought:

> **Alex** : That is the single kindest, most thoughtful, high-handed, productive, helpful, ridiculous, amazing thing anyone in this timeline has ever done for me.
> 
> **Kyle** : I figure I can’t compete with pining for you for a decade and change, so I’ll accept the second-best-friend-to-Michael compliment. I’m glad it helped.
> 
> **Alex** : it fucking did. They want me to be Director of the Habemus Tempus Institute.
> 
> **Kyle** : Is that what you want?

Alex paused.

He gave it a moment, gave it time to settle.

He let himself check to be sure what he felt at the top of his heart went all the way down to the bottom of it.

Then he replied:

> **Alex** : I think it is. I don’t start until next month, if the committee approves it. October 23.
> 
> **Kyle** : That’s awesome. And Maria’s eta is 1 min, so I’d head outside if I were you.

Alex was about to text him back to ask _what_ Maria was doing coming by here at this time of the morning when he heard the rumble of Maria’s truck outside. He took a minute to swing by the bathroom, slip his now-clean-and-dry prosthetic back on. The rumble stopped and he headed out, slipping past a still conked-out Michael, feet quiet on the colorful gravel of the garden and through the garden gate. He slipped around the corner to see -- a row of baskets lined up against the wall. Maria was already back in the front seat of her truck with Michelle Valenti in the passenger seat. Maria rolled down the window in the cool morning air.

“Hey, Alex,” Maria said with a smile. “Kyle texted to say you’d had a hard night, but you and Michael would probably be staying in today. We’d been planning these for a few weeks now, for when you both were on the same page again. We decided to drop them off now before you two aren't fit to leave the bedroom.”

“I,” Alex started, looking at the row of six wicker baskets. “I don’t understand.”

Sheriff Valenti answered: “When I got married to to Jim, his Mom packed me a basket for the honeymoon: just some bread and cheese and grapes; some wine and an opener; letter openers open wrapping paper; box cutters for boxes, napkins for spills. A roadmap. All the tiny things people forget about that can make those first few flushed days go wrong.”

Maria grinned: “Michelle kept it PG13, and so did Marie and Jared -- theirs are the two with the green ribbons.” Alex looked over to twin picnic baskets with green ribbons around their handles. “I can’t say Kyle and I did the same with ours -- but hey, what are friends for?”

“I --” Alex started again, looking between all of the baskets. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Maria shook her head: “You got Michael free. Kyle tells me, because of you, Jesse and Flint Manes won’t be darkening my bar’s door anymore.”

Sheriff Valenti leaned across her to say: “It’s been a stain on Roswell, for decades, how the Time Agency has operated. If what Kyle told me is right, you’re a big reason why that is going to change. That’s worth far more than some wine and bread and cheese --”

“And a lot of condoms.” Maria grinned.

Sheriff Valenti looked a little quellingly across at Maria; she was unrepentant.

The Sheriff continued: “I don’t know everything about what happened last night -- _and I don’t want to know_ \-- but I don’t need to know anything more than I already do that you and Michael deserve a quiet restful day or thirty. This is just our way of helping make sure that happens and you don’t starve to death in that castle he’s been building you.”

Alex looked down, heart running wild in his chest.

“Thank you.” He said.

“No problem,” Maria said. “Once you two come up for air, I hope to see you two more at the Wild Pony; you two deserve some fun and while the dancing’s better at Planet 7, nothing beats my bar for good, old fashioned pool and darts.”

“I am an expert marksman.” Alex said and Maria grinned.

“Perfect, you can help take some of those cowboy customers down a peg. Give Michael my love. See you all later.”

And with a quick wave, she rolled up her window, pulled a 3-point turn, and headed back out towards the highway.

Alex turned away from the departing truck’s headlights and contemplated the baskets. 

He had no idea what to do with this kind of -- love? Community support? Care? _Family?_

So, he headed over, grabbing the two baskets with the green ribbons and hauling them inside. Once he’d set them on the kitchen table, he lifted the delicate woven wicker lid. Carefully laid over what looked like a plastic tin of home-made cup-cakes with little chilis decorating the tops and fresh-picked corn and dried beans was a red, hole-y, faded Wolverine shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a bit of context, in September 2018 the Republican party controlled the US House of Representatives. That means they got to lead the committees. Most committee chairships are determined by seniority on that committee, so the longest-serving Republican on each committee would get to run that committee (sometimes the exception proves the rule). The "ranking member" is the longest serving, non-majority party member of that committee. So the democratic ranking member who was on the call would be the longest serving Democrat on the STAR committee -- which is a real committee! But I'm pretty sure they don't oversee time-travel. Let me know if you have any questions!
> 
> As a quick primer, under US law and the Palermo Protocol human trafficking is when someone is in a working situation because of force, fraud, or coercion. Michael experienced both force and coercion. Another way to think about it is if someone is tricked, trapped, or traded. At this period, a lot of members of Congress were very into talking about some kinds of human trafficking, so that's why I had Rep Wiltson make this connection so quickly.
> 
> I had a job right out of college working with survivors of human trafficking that left me with some vicarious trauma I'm still working through, so while I can and will dip my toes into discussions of that aspect of the story, I'll probably nope out pretty quick if it gets graphic. I've got too many real-world details in my head to want to go spelunking in that particular reality-hole today.


	48. you, I never could

Once Alex had all of the baskets on the kitchen island, all of the cold items in the fridge and everything else left in place for him and Michael to unpack together, he slipped back outside to where Michael was still sleeping. 

He sat on the edge of the nest, looking down at him. He looked as beautiful as a painting, reminding him as much of a carving of David in living marble as he had in Doha. Alex wondered, for a moment, if this was a dream; something too perfect to touch, too perfect to last. He tested it, letting himself trail his fingers through just the tips of Michael’s golden curls, reassuring himself that no dreamworld would let him have this silky mess, this tangled heaven of a man. 

A few handfuls of the pale-green feathery leaves of the palo verdes had scattered themselves across the crimson saddle blanket overnight, leaving it unclear to Alex’s soft gaze where the dappling was shadow and where it was just-dropped leaves. He brushed a hand down Michael’s arm where it was outflung across the blankets, and Michael curled towards him, sleeping but still seeking Alex.

Alex quickly removed his prosthetic and yanked himself out of Michael’s stolen button-up shirt. He slipped under the covers, sliding down along Michael’s body, feeling every inch of skin and luxuriating in it. He thought about trying to wake Michael up, but if the phonecall, the truck, and the three trips carrying honeymoon baskets hadn’t done it, he didn’t think much else would. Michael rolled over in his arms, giving Alex his back and wriggling his hips closer until he was flush with Alex, until they were connected in a long, sinuous line. Alex wished he’d shucked his sweatpants, but he could settle for the feeling of his arm over Michael’s bare ribs, his chest pressed to the big muscles protecting Michael’s spine, and his stomach pressed against his lower back.

Alex closed his eyes; he didn’t expect to sleep after the excitement of that call, but there was something perfectly meditative in following each of Michael’s breaths, in and out, in and out, in and out, in the quiet morning air.

\--

Alex must have slept, because when he awoke again he had buried his face in Michael’s armpit and the other man was tracing long, lazy lines up and down his spine with one hand as he munched on a piece of baklava. There was a dab of honey in the dip of his clavicle, and some assorted crushed pistachio crumbs mixing their rich scent with Michael’s. Alex took a deep breath. He didn’t know if it was normal to love the way your partner smelled this much, but Michael’s scent was so much stronger under his arms and Alex just wanted to _roll_ in it. His internal clock told him he’d been down for about a full REM cycle -- about 90 minutes.

“Morning, beautiful,” Alex said to Michael’s sparse chest hair as he arched his back into Michael’s exploring hand. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good, love,” Michael said and Alex could hear the words through his chest in counterpoint to his steady heartbeat. “Better than I had any right to, bunking out here under the stars. Thanks for making that happen.”

Alex grinned, hauling himself up to press a kiss to Michael’s smiling mouth before settling back down, tucking his head into the lull between Michael’s shoulder and collarbone, murmuring: “It was my pleasure.” He stretched his arm across Michael’s chest, holding tight to him for a long moment before letting go.

He felt Michael lean down to press a kiss to his crown. Then there was a crinkle and Michael pulled over the pink sticky note, wiggling it in the air. “You had a call?”

“It was to tie-up loose ends. I can go over it in detail, but the tl;dr is: we’re safe. No one is coming to get us. We have some things we need to do tomorrow, but I think we can have breakfast in peace before going over it all.”

“Congressman Wiltson, he was the one I met at the dog-and-pony show?”

“Yep, he remembered you and your ideas too.” He took a breath, mind buzzing with everything they’d talked about. He propped himself up on his elbow, meeting Michael’s eyes. “Actually, do you mind if we talk about it now? There were some big points, and they touch on both of our lives.”

Michael nodded, face growing serious. “Want to do this over breakfast? I’m up for heading inside if you are.” 

“Maria and Michelle brought over even _more_ food, these lovely honeymoon baskets that all of our friends made us. Apparently they thought we’d rather starve to death than put pants on.” He glanced down at Michael: “Jared and Marie made one, must have made it once Kyle told them what was going on, dropped it off with Michelle once word came back that you were out and alright.” He took a breath. “It’s kind of, a lot. How many people love us. Act like they love me, even when they don’t know me.”

Michael tilted his head. “It will probably take some time for it to feel ok or normal to have this much support and affection, after a lifetime of needing to live independently of love. A lifetime of surviving without any of it. But, for what it’s worth, Jared and Marie have been hearing stories about you for about 15 years, so they probably feel like they _do_ know you well enough to love you. Same with my Mom and Isobel and Max. But they’re all also Time Aware enough to know that it’ll take you some time to catch-up with them too. If everything goes right, it’ll be like those olive trees.” He gestured over to the side yard where Alex could see the dark, waxy leaves seeming to flicker as their pale, furry underbellies flashed in the soft desert wind. “In 10 years -- or 5, or 3 -- it’ll be like there was never a gap.”

Alex smiled, feeling the warmth and security Michael was pushing through the bond: “How about, for today, we get breakfast inside, talk about the call, take a shower, take your truck over to Kyle’s place to get my things, then come back here and settle in for the day?”

Michael skimmed his hand up Alex’s back, palm going into the sway of it, fingers light on his spine: “Are you up for a little more adult activity in the shower?”

And there it was, a flare of heat, of bare-boned _want_ , flooding through Alex. He could see the second it bounced, nearly bounded, across the bond, saw it light Michael’s eyes up too.

“Breakfast and talking first,” Alex said, voice thin with self-restraint. He forced himself to disentangle from the blankets. “Mind-melting shower sex after.”

Michael huffed but followed him out of the nest, munching on the last of the baklava while Alex pulled on his prosthetic. When he was ready, Michael offered a hand-up. Alex took it, letting Michael hold his weight and trusting him with his balance. Once he was steady, Michael let his hand drop, gesturing with his hand to toss all of the crumble from the baklava into the rounded stones of the arroyito.

“You missed a spot,” Alex said and leaned in, licking the bit of honey off Michael’s clavicle. He felt Michael shudder, fingers going into his hair, and when he pulled back it was only to be pulled up, mouth tight against Michael’s, Michael’s tongue chasing the taste of honey into his. Alex gave a groan, bracing his forearms against Michael’s chest and pushing back, licking into Michael’s mouth, the intimacy of it made that much more present and impossibly pure by the bond that told him _just how much_ Michael wanted to scrap their thinly-woven plan and just spend the day in this bed.

But then Michael pulled back, a feeling of quiet coming across their connection, the kind of self-control that could get someone through a PhD program before they turned 20 and a medical degree before they hit 25.

“Breakfast, talking, shower, Kyle’s, then we can have each other as much as we want.”

“Yeah.” Alex said, breath hot between them, eyes closed because he wasn’t sure how good his control was if he had to see how Michael felt reflected in his eyes. “A good plan.”

Michael gathered up his clothes, then looked down at them, scrunching his face. “Any objection to me doing breakfast naked?”

Alex had to blink a few times to recover from that image. He swallowed. “It’ll be some heavy topics, but if you’re ok with it, I can have no objections.” He felt his cheeks heat a little. “I’ll probably stick with the sweatpants.”

Michael smirked: “Totally cool. Left to my own devices, I tend to wear as few clothes at home as possible. The adobe wall around the house is 75% so I can use my powers without worrying about it, and at least 25% because I cannot be bothered to put on clothes unless there is someone over or I have to go out. I’ve hidden robes in most of the closets so if I have to hop onto a video call or answer the door, no one is _too_ traumatized by my radiant self.”

And Alex -- it flashed on him, just for a second, how different Michael’s definition of the word “home” was to his. He’d never had a home he could be naked in, never had a home where he’d have felt safe doing so outside of the shower or changing. He felt so _grateful_ , proud even, that he’d helped create a life for Michael where he _could_ be this free, this reflectively open, this _safe_.

Smiling, Michael settled on his hips, warm and heavy and solid. “So,” Michael said, “I had something I wanted to do.” 

“Yeah?” Alex prompted when Michael froze, seeming to run out of steam.

“So,” he said, dropping his eyes to their feet. “There’s a superstition that the way a couple first enters their first home together will set the tone for the relationship. It’s something Marie and Jared taught me about. In a het relationship, if the man goes first, he’ll expect to be in charge. If he carries his wife over the threshold, then he’ll expect to be the provider.”

Alex made a disgusted cat face.

Michael nodded in agreement: “If the woman goes first, well, you can think of all the stereotypes.”

Alex nodded; he’d heard more than enough misogynistic trash talk growing-up.

Michael smiled: “So, it’s always been a puzzle: if you want to have an egalitarian relationship, a truly equal one, how do you enter your first home together?”

Alex thought about it for a moment: “So the lintel to the home is a liminal space -- like the timestream, like a checkpoint, or a border or revolution. It’s like a lot of the places where I’ve had missions. A space between spaces.”

Michael paused, then: “So, how do you think we should do it?”

Alex felt his eyes get wide -- he didn’t want to mess this up, something Michael clearly thought was important but he hadn’t even _known_ about, hadn’t had a chance to think about --

And then Michael soothed his palm down Alex’s side, and something in him settled. “Come on, Alex. You’re the genius who figured out we could win the robotics competition with just a piece of dry ice. I have an idea, so there’s no pressure, but I think you’ll know what to do.”

Alex blinked -- and he did.

“Can you float both of our weight across with your TK?”

Michael grinned and nodded. 

“Alright then,” Alex said. Then he squatted down and swept Michael up into a bridal carry, heart lifting with the peal of his laughter, striding towards the door. Then his stomach flipped, body reacting like he was falling, even though he was rising, flying as Michael lifted them both into their new home together.

Michael let them drift slowly to the floor in front of the kitchen island and then he slipped his hands into his hair, holding on and curling up into him for a long, tender kiss. After a long moment Alex pulled back and Michael let himself be lowered down to the thick carpet.

He steadied himself on Alex’s shoulders, eyes shining, smile bright and a little sad. “That’s something I’ve been wanting to do since Libya. It was part of my big Welcome Home Alex Plan.”

Alex grinned, pressing a kiss to his lips: this one softer, like the seal on an envelope; like a promise. “I feel welcomed. And maybe we can just spread-out your welcome plan, do a little bit of it every day, rather than all at once?”

Michael took a breath: “That’ll work. It can be a whole Welcome Week.” He stepped back, turning to the array of baskets on the counter; Alex could feel his surprise and delight. “These the honeymoon baskets?”

Alex nodded, tucking his arm around his waist, thrilling in the long line of skin contact that earned him as Michael laid an easy arm across his shoulders.

“Yep, the ones with the green ribbons are from Jared and Marie, these are from Maria and Kyle, these ones are from Michelle and Arturo, I think, judging on the Crashdown logo on the boxes inside.” He started for the basket from Maria and Alex warned: “Maria said hers and Kyles weren’t PG13 so --”

He felt Michael’s laugh before he heard it, tapping against his fingertips as Michael pulled an oversized bottle of Gun Oil Silicone-Based Lube in the shape of an artillery cartridge, followed by a full handle of Bulleit whiskey.

Michael gently set the lube aside then tipped the bottle in his hands: “This isn’t my brand.”

“That one’s on me --” Alex explained to Michael’s questioning look. “The only time Maria’s seen me drink was that first night at the Pony. I learned to order a whiskey neat and then not drink it when I had missions in bars, so that’s what I did there.”

“Do you like whiskey?”

Alex shrugged. “I --” and he stopped. He wasn’t quite sure how to say it. Until the last month, his likes and preferences had meant less than nothing. If anything, they were targets for having anything he expressed interest in taken away as punishment, anything he disliked being forced on him. He took a breath, his voice smaller than he wanted it to be, body suddenly chilly: “This is one of those places where I’m not going to have normal answers. I'm sorry.”

Michael held him a little bit closer, keeping his voice light: “I figure we’re going to bump into all kinds of places where I’ll put my foot in my mouth. Could we come up with a short hand, some kind of code so I know I’ve done it, so you don’t have to explain? For us to ask to say things that feel awkward because of the unique way we grew up, we met? Like, in this case, if I’d thought about it for more than a half-second I would have realized you didn’t have a lot of time to develop alcohol preferences.”

“No, Michael, you shouldn’t have to adjust just because I’m --” and now it was like stepping into a pool of icy water where there’d been solid ground, it all yawning around him, all the normal things he was missing, all the --

He felt Michael shuddered against him, like he was feeling the same icy cold. Still he kept his voice even: “Love, we’re both going to have our moments. I’ll make a hurtful assumption or you will, and we need a way out of it. I expect we’ll both need a little grace. I don’t think you need to apologize to me for needing it --”

“I don’t want you to apologize either. It’s not like it’s your fault I’m so fucked up.”

A look of pain flashed across Michael’s face.

“Are you ok?” Alex asked, hands going tight in his side. Michael nodded, fingers tightening around his shoulder.

“I --” he took a breath. “I can _feel_ it. When you’re that hard on yourself, when you are cruel to yourself, through the mark I can _feel_ it,” he said, pressing his free hand to his breastbone.

Alex felt a rush of guilt, that his own mental minefield had trapped Michael too.

“I’m sorry, I’m not --”

“I’m -- I’m not trying to make you feel bad, love. If you could help it, you would. But, maybe, it would help to remember, to feel, how I feel about you. While you’re working on having good feelings about you too.” 

Michael took a breath and Alex felt -- it wasn’t like Michael was shoving calm through their connection at him, trying to silence whatever maelstrom had been strafing his mind. More like he was opening his arms. Offering solace, if Alex wanted it.

He _wanted_ it. He pulled that feeling, that calm, that love into him, letting it unspin the twisting, awful feeling that had seemed to come out of nowhere. And then, after the calm, there was a brief pause, and then Alex felt it, rising like water in a bath, the warm slosh and flow and building buoyant pressure of Michael’s feelings. Flushes of affection, flashes of passion, a low simmer of lust, and, throughout all of it, an entirely, complete ecosystem, a protected and protective atmosphere’s-worth of love.

“Oh,” Alex said. He tried to concentrate on his feelings for Michael, to get those through the bond as well, hand flexing on the counter with effort, his mark pulsing with it. And then Michael’s shoulders came down a little, tension on his face easing. 

“Thanks,” Michael said, sliding his thumb over the mark on Alex’s wrist. He bent down it, eyes never leaving Alex’s, and pressed his lips to his inner wrist. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Alex said. “So much.”

He sagged against Michael’s side a little, letting him hold a bit more of his weight. “A code word would be good,” he said, voice soft. “I -- I know it’s going to happen. That there will be bumps, things I know, things I don’t know. I just,” he gave a quiet sigh. “I was hoping I wouldn’t fall apart on the first day.”

Michael reached his arm over his shoulders, holding onto him tightly. “We’ve got the advantage that we’ve got some matching baggage and no major secrets to keep. Time, care, and communication should handle the rest.” Alex nodded, still holding onto that soft, connected feeling as his own emotions subsided to something bearable.

“In the meantime, do you think Michelle maybe packed something more nutritious than,” he peered back into Maria’s basket, “what looks like some _extremely_ alcoholic chocolates and even more whiskey?”

“I think she did,” Alex said, reaching over to flip the lid open. Out of it came the smell of fresh apples, oranges, and something cinnamon. 

Michael dove in, pulling out a bright blue handmade ceramic bowl of fruit and a stack of -- “ _Yes_ , fancy chocolates,” he crowed, opening the foil. Alex reached for an orange, releasing his hold on Michael’s waist to begin to work his thumb between the flesh and the pith.

Michael gestured, pulling two stools around from the kitchen counter and arranging them so he and Alex could continue to explore the baskets, shoulders pressed tight together.

“For the code word, we want something that’s easy to say and easy to share in public and is just between us.”

“How about something in Arabic?”

Alex spread the peel out like a five-petaled flower under the base of the orange and began to work a segment free.

“Maybe ‘ma salam’? ‘With peace?’ Since that’s,” he paused, voice quiet, “since that’s how I’d like to feel, when I don’t know something, don’t have a normal answer. ‘With peace’ with where I’m at, and knowing there’s a path forward.”

“Ma salam.” Michael said, snagging a piece of freshly liberated orange. “I like it. It’ll give us both that little half-second to prepare, to get ready to talk about something a little harder. Kind of like a content warning for gaps in our shared experiences.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, feeling warm inside. “So, I could say: ma salam. I didn’t eat a lot of sweets growing up, so that chocolate and the cupcakes Marie and Jared baked aren’t really going to do it for me.”

“And I could reply: “Ma salam, _awesome_ , more sugar for me!” Michael said with a grin.

Alex returned it, the last dregs of the panic attack fading as softly as the stars had that morning.

Michael said: ”And I could say, ma salam, I’ve never actually had sex in a shower, so while I am excited to try it, I have literally no idea how it will work.”

And Alex laughed: “Me either, but I’m looking forward to figuring it out with you.”

“And if it doesn’t work, we’ve always got the couch and the bed and the rug -- “

“And, of course, the laundry room, which we’ve already christened.”

“We can never forget that, for sure,” Michael said, letting a flush of his arousal drift across their bond.

Alex started on another orange and Michael pulled out a packet of fancy crackers, using his TK to slip open the fridge to get a group of cheeses and a cheese board. He filled up two glasses of water and a pitcher, passing one over to Alex.

“So, we’ve got food, we’ve got drinks, we’ve got a comfortable place to sit. Want to talk about the call?”

“Let’s start at the beginning, how I met the people on it.” Michael nodded. “Ok, so, when I came back from my trip of Gaza --”

“That was the first night we kissed, October 2011.”

Alex remembered it, warmth trickling into his belly. He nudged his knee against Michael’s: “That’s actually part of it. So, I have this difficult, hard trip to Gaza, to undermine Hamas’s technical infrastructure and also teach some Python coding to kids at the Qattan Foundation Children’s Centre. Then I have this absolutely lovely moment with you, kissing on the counter in your kitchen in Pittsburgh --”

“And the bed; don’t forget the bed. I sure didn’t.”

Alex nodded, pressing a kiss behind his ear and feeling his stomach flutter with glee at Michael’s wriggle of happiness. “So,” he continued. “I finish the mission, see you, and then I get back to the Time Agency and I feel -- excited. Energized. And, for the first time in a long time, when I get the offer to go to the post-mission reception afterwards, I don’t just go -- I dive in. I meet folks on the House’s Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research Committee -- the STAR Committee -- one of the Time Agency’s Congressional oversight committees. I talk to people, I get their cards, I get to know them. I chatted mostly with Congressman Wiltson and Undersecretary Power -- she’s the one that wrote the doctrine for the duty to intervene.”

“She was on the call this morning?”

Alex nodded: “She and Wiltson both. So, after the reception, after she saw what the Time Agency could do, and once we got into contact, she started sending missions my way. Requesting I be the one to complete them. The time in Beirut -- I got to see my friend Mena, I’ll tell you about him later -- and I got to recruit Genevieve --”

“Isobel loves her, ‘dark-haired stranger’ was like her anthem in high school, and I just _finally_ got the hook for ‘Symphony for a morning’ out of my head like, two months ago.”

And Alex felt something like pride, something almost like a giggle rising. “There’s a line in that one, something about ‘my mother, the words, not mine’?”

Michael frowned: “Ma salama, but I thought you didn’t get to listen to a lot of music? How come you know a pop queen’s lyrics?”

Alex was barely holding his grin back. His tone was a little uneven when he said: “What -- what do you think that line is about?”

Michael frowned: “Isobel always thought it was about how Genevieve’s mother spoke a different dialect of Sara than she did day-to-day.”

“Hmm, could be, but _you_ know something she doesn’t know.”

Michael frowned a little, taking another bite of brie and thinking. 

After a moment, Alex prompted: “What did I bring you back from that trip?”

Michael answered right away: “The Darwish poem, ‘My mother’ hand-translated by --” and Michael’s eyes grew massive. “No.”

Alex grinned, pulling out his phone: “Yep. That one’s about me. There’s more, I only have some of the lyrics, I just learned about it this morning but --” he skimmed to the rec letter by Genevieve, pulling up the list and setting it in front of Michael on the counter.

Michael, however, was not looking at the phone. Michael was staring, gape-mouthed, at Alex. His voice was a harsh whisper when he said: “You’re the dark-eyed stranger. You’re the miracle and the one who offered her ‘help with no sacrifice.’ That was all _you_?”

Alex nodded, finally letting his grin out. Michael was shaking his head in amazement as he glanced down at the lyrics, scrolling through them with his finger. “You weren’t the ‘stranger in the closet’ though, right? I can’t imagine you were out in Chad in 2002.”

“No -- I think that was Clara Power, actually. I think she was stationed in Chad, heard Genevieve’s voice through a local poetry contest, and remembered her. Remembered and made sure I got a mission to go back and elevate her, get her the kinds of resources and recognition that, in a more just world, she would have already had.” He took a breath, excitement bubbling under his words: “She sees the potential of time travel to make these incredible kinds of changes, focusing on soft power -- diplomacy and the arts, grant-making and incubators and the environment and people to people connections. _Exactly_ the kind of missions I love, the ones where I do the most good.”

Alex took a breath, voice a little wry as he went back in the story: “Trust a Time Agent to tell the story out of order. So I meet Clara Power and Joe Wiltson at the reception. I stay in touch with both of them, building a relationship with Clara. Then, the last mission. The one where,” and he felt his jaw tighten, his back hardening, breath catching. His voice was flat when he said: “The one where I see you get taken. That was yesterday. As soon as I get back, finish reading the letters like you told me -- by the way, I have no words for how incredible those were, we need to talk about that later.” Michael nodded, a pleased smile moving across his face. “Then I call in every chit I had with everyone I could think of -- which wasn’t a lot of people. A pretty good summary of the Colonel’s strategy for the past 28 years has been ‘prevent Alex from having any allies.’”

Michael’s voice was low and serious: “I’d kill him again if I could.” 

“I know you would. Thank you.” Alex said, covering his hand. “So, I email Clara and Rep Wiltson, lay my cards on the table, send the recording of the Colonel trying to kill me -- the other side of the phone conversation he and Flint had with you.”

“Damning stuff,” Michael said evenly.

Alex quirked a smile: “I figured I wouldn’t get a second chance to make my case against the former Director of the Time Agency for attempted murder.” He kept going: “I had no idea if it would work, but I told Clara and Rep Wiltson to send an ombudswoman to, basically, come find our bodies if the rescue attempt didn’t work. And that I wanted to have a call at 8am, this morning. I had to hope they saw their emails, answered them, and I had enough wusta to get through to them.”

He kept going: “I also knew the Colonel would fight back. Whether we killed him or not, I knew that he had a file -- a portfolio -- of every mission that from, his perspective, I’d failed. Failing to prevent 9/11, the Benghazi attack before your people changed Libya’s environment so much it was no longer an option in this timeline;” he took a hard breath, “stuff like that.”

“Fucking sicko.” Michael said, more venom creeping into his voice. “Fucking shitbag. I hope he has to wander the universe rootless and unwelcomed everywhere he goes forever in whatever after life his measly excuse for a soul warranted him.”

Alex wasn’t sure if he was ever going to get tired of people hating the Colonel on his behalf; it felt like protection; like a kind of armor. But he got back to the topic: “For the portfolio, I didn’t have any way to combat it, didn’t have, like, a counter-portfolio.” And then he smiled. “But it turns out, Kyle did. Kyle had been reaching out to all of the people I’d helped since this all started between the two of us, getting rec letters.” He tapped his screen. “That’s where Genevieve’s letter came in. And Mena’s and --” he found himself blinking, cutting a piece of aged parmesan. “There are so many letters, Michael. Just from the last two months. Just since the beginning of August. All these people who say I saved their lives, helped their countries, changed their world. I just,” he took a breath. “I just have no idea what to do with it.”

“Well,” Michael said. “First thing we’re going to do is: print them all out. Every single rec letter. Then I’ll make us some frames in the bunker workshop and we’ll hang them down there -- I’m sure they’re classified, or should be, but being real, if someone makes it all the way into my alien-tech-filled basement bunker, past all the security my family could arrange and pay for, we’re so far past clearance levels there’s really no point in worrying.” And his voice got a little quieter. “And I think it might do you good, if you want it, to have a place you can go, where you can see the names and words of the people you’ve helped.” He nudged Alex’s shoulder. “That’s an incredible gift from Kyle.”

“He didn’t tell me about it,” Alex said, picking up another cracker and crunching the edge onto the cheese board. “He didn’t tell me about you or Max or Isobel or --” and he took a breath, closing his eyes. “It’s not fair to be mad at him. Not even a little bit. I didn’t tell him about his parent’s divorce or any of the other things I could have found a way to warn him about, prepare him for. But,” Alex swallowed. “I am so grateful to him and also a little pissed.” He closed his eyes. “Honestly, I think I’m pissed that I needed the help. That I was so helpless, for so long, in so many ways. He had to teach me how to chop vegetables, how to get a bank account, how to talk to friends and choose my own family, all this --”

Michael smoothed a hand down his arm, murmuring: “Ma salama, but I’ve got some experience with receiving gifts that are impossible to repay. Gifts that have to do with money, with safety, with family.” His voice was low, steady, even. “And someone really, really wise once told me the only way to repay those kinds of gifts is to pass them on. To think of it all as an interest-free loan. And we’re all kind of in a circle here, where Kyle was passing onto you the gift you gave me. And that seems to have made you want to give another gift to someone else. ” Alex nodded. 

Michael continued, voice careful: “It’s a virtuous cycle, _as long as_ it doesn’t come from a place of hurt. Of wanting. If it doesn’t come from a place of guilt or feeling like you’re undeserving.”

“Ma salama, what if it does?” Alex’s voice was tiny, choked. He forced forced himself to say the words. “Michael, what if it does?”

Michael only held him tighter: “Then it does. And you work on it. Then it does -- and you try to get better about it, and try to forgive yourself when you don’t. And if you can, tell the people you love and who love you around you when you _are_ struggling, so we can try to help.” He nudged a whole piece of cracker over to Alex and Alex accepted it, munching on it, letting the cracked pepper and rosemary flick across his tongue. “There’s no real fast track on this kind of thing, no shortcut or code. Just rewiring your brain, one bit of practice at a time.”

Alex turned into him, putting his knee on the other side of his hips, moving to the edge of his stool and pressing his face into Michael’s curls. His voice was muffled, but he knew Michael could hear him: “You’re sure? You can’t just make me a magical device that makes my brain work better?”

Michael snorted. “I like your brain. I like your brain however it works and I like you, just how you are. And I love that you want to get better and be better.” After a minute, he murmured: “But I don’t think Kyle sending all those letters to the STAR Committee is the end of the story.”

“No,” Alex said, pulling back a little, but keeping his hand wrapped around Michael’s upper arm even as he reached for another slice of cheese. “Ok, so I get on the call and Clara Power’s wired the room, got it so we all agree no one really cares what happened to the Colonel and Flint is going straight to military prison until the ombudswoman's review is over.” Alex checked the microwave clock and felt some of the tension trickle out of his shoulders. “He should be in custody right now, in the back of a van heading to Kirtland in handcuffs, along with everyone else who kept you captive.”

“Wow,” Michael said, fingers flexing against Alex’s arm. “Wow, that’s -- that’s incredible. Do they take fruit baskets in the State Department?”

“It’s got to be under a certain dollar amount, but I think a text would cover it.” Alex took a quick breath. “But with Flint and the Colonel gone, they want a new interim head of the agency. They offered it to me.” And without letting that sink in, he rushed to say: “I turned it down. I said no.” 

Michael didn’t say anything and Alex couldn’t see his expression from this angle. 

He loosened his hold on Michael’s arm.

And into the gap the cruel thoughts flooded -- he could imagine Michael’s disappointment, his anger, at Alex throwing away his only chance to make a difference, to change things. He tried to explain, mind rushing with it again: “I just knew, in that moment. I just -- I couldn’t think of a way I could ever be happy, working there. I -- it hurts, too much, ok? I -- I don’t think I can handle it, not anymore, I --” and he didn’t know what to say, how to _explain_ \--

And then Michael was turning, wrapping him in a broad-armed hug: “I’m so proud of you, Alex. So _fucking_ proud, I’m -- you’re so brave and I -- I worked for that, a whole part of my life, just, _hoping_ to get you out of there, and you -- you just _did_ it. God, I could not be prouder of you.” And on like that, and eventually he could feel, these weren’t just words, they were the tip-ends of feelings, deep, roiling feelings, moving like mountains under Michael’s surface.

“Really?”

“ _Fuck_ yes, Alex. All I want is for you to be happy, and you’re right, I can’t see a world where being Director of the Time Agency would make you happy. Not in that building, in that office; not with those same people.”

Alex murmured into the soft hair on the side of Michael’s neck. “I think Clara was expecting that. I think she was hoping for it, that I would turn it down.”

“Smart woman. Good woman, too, it sounds like.”

Michael’s arms were still tight against him as Alex said: “I still want to help, you know? Use all my skills, all my knowledge. Change how we do things, as a country. Make sure we’re solving the problems people in other countries actually want and need solved, giving them power and voice over changes to their own worlds. She has this whole new process for the Habemus Tempus Institute, having their grants be given to projects suggested by people in the country, people who know about the Time Agency and what we can do.” He took a breath. “She offered me the Habemus Tempus Institute. No more missions, no more orders. Civilian life, regular hours, a real, reliable schedule. A chance to use everything I know, everything I’ve learned, to _help._ ”

“And what did you say, when she asked you to run it?”

“I said yes, pending Congressional approval, and not starting for a month. That gives me time to change my mind, to back-out.”

“But would it be what you want? If it all worked out?”

“I think so. Maybe not forever, but Michael, I can do so much good there for now.” He paused, asking: “Is a month enough time, for us to talk about it? To think about it? I can withdraw anytime, I just --”

Michael leaned his forehead against Alex’s, pressing tight and close. “We’ll figure out a process for how we want to make these kinds of decisions, but the bedrock of it, for me, is: do you think this will make you happy and whole?”

“I think so. I -- I want it to. I hope so.” Alex said.

“Then it sounds like a good idea to me. I’m really fucking proud of you for making it.”

Alex could feel those same long, slow slopes of pride and love and affection and hope, they were the same rolling, consistent foundation of how Alex could feel him through the bond. Like he meant it, like he meant it when he said he just wanted Alex to be happy and whole and was ok with walking alongside him on whatever path it took for him to get there.

Alex pulled himself a little closer to Michael, Michael moving so their stools legs were intertwined, Alex’s leg half on his lap. “There’s something else.”

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t promise them anything, I never would do that, but,” he paused, taking a quick breath and steadying his hand on Michael’s chest. “Clara asked for your number. To pitch you on becoming the Director of the Time Agency.”

Michael’s body stiffened under his palm, breaths growing deeper.

Then he could feel his emotions racing, crashing, too fast to see, all intensity and brightness and light.

His voice was distant, unsure: “Why?”

Alex couldn’t tell from his tone what he was feeling; he doubted if Michael knew at that moment. “Congressmember Wiltson remembered you from the panel you were on, remembered your argument that Antarans should run the Time Agency. He’s interested in having closer relationships with the Antarans; I think he wants your tech, and your Mom to be on his side.” He gave him a wry smile: “I told them you’d made greater advances for the Time Agency in a month than anyone else had made in 3 decades.” Alex worked his jaw. “I wanted to make sure the job was yours to turn down, so as soon as they mentioned you, I may have sung your praises a little loudly.” He paused. “Uh, a lot. A lot loudly.”

“Yeah, Alex?” Michael said, glancing up at him, a bit of a teasing tone coming back to his voice. “Did you write them my hagiography?”

“I did,” Alex said unapologetically. “St Michael, prince of the heavenly host, defender of soldiers -- though I’m not sure archangels are technically covered under hagiographies, since they can’t really be saints.”

“I have precisely zero knowledge of Catholic rules,” Michael said, “so you could tell me Michael was patron saint of robot snakes and I’d just go along with it.”

“That would probably be a mix of San Diego and Saint Francis,” Alex said, then shook his head. “Nevermind. Anyway. What I told Clara was I would ask you if you wanted to share your number with her. If you do, that gets the ball rolling. I can also tell her you declined and you’ll never have to think about it again.”

“When do I have until to decide?”

“I told her sometime today, since they need a point of contact for the investigation. But I can push her off until tomorrow no problem if you need me to.”

“I need to think about it. Think about what it would mean, for me; for us; for our family.”

“That makes total sense,” Alex said, rubbing his thumb across the top of Michael’s peck, feeling his body lose some of that taught-tendon tightness. After a moment, he asked: “Anything else from that call?”

Alex shook his head: “The ombudswoman -- her name is Charlie and she’s a STAR Committee staffer with family who works with Max -- gets here Tuesday at noon, if her flights all work out.”

“Got it.” Michael pulled back a little, taking a moment to look over the absolutely demolished cheese and crackers spread. “Looks like we were hungry.”

“For more than food,” Alex said, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder. 

Alex could feel his heartbeat jump a little, and he felt absurdly proud of himself. Michael slipped off his stool, giving Alex room to stand. Then he waved his hands, the cheese flitting over to the fridge, the cheeseboard and knives going into the sink. As he worked, he said in a low voice:

“I cannot express how much I hate to bring it up,” Michael said, “but while we’re still thinking with our upstairs brains, we we have a big, ugly thing to decide.”

Alex frowned a little, hands drifting to his sides. “What?”

Michael gave him a sad smile: “We have to decide how to dispose of the Colonel’s body.”

And -- yes. He looked down, working his jaw. “That’s true. We can do it tomorrow, but we should have a plan before then. So we don’t have to worry about it.” He glanced up at Michael’s sympathetic look. “I -- I’d been trying to avoid thinking about it.”

Michael spoke quickly: “Can I handle this for you? Alex, I just -- I need your help getting onto the base, wiping the right tapes. But if I have your permission, I want to take care of this for you.”

Alex felt relief like a waterfall down his back and found his words with ease: “I would like that. I, if I can, I would like to never see or touch him again. If I can.” He worked his jaw. “How would you do it?”

“I want to ask my Mom, bring in the perspectives of other people who were harmed by him, for a long time. If you don’t have a preference, I thought giving them a choice might help.”

“I know Maria was our line to the Antarans during last night’s mission, so they should know you’re safe.” Alex took a breath. “Do you think we could ask, get that started before we take the shower? Now we’re talking about it, I kind of want it off our plates before we move onto something we should both be able to,” and he dug his thumb in a little deeper, just to feel Michael sigh against him, “be _entirely_ focused on.”

Michael pressed a kiss to his forehead. “That’s totally fine. It’s early evening in Libya. I can call my Mom now.” He reached down to tug Alex’s hand. “She’ll be glad to see you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering why San Diego and Saint Francis would be the shared patrons of robot snakes, Saint Francis usually covers animals in a positive way (St Patrick would be good if we wanted to get rid of the robot snakes; but we don't): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi
> 
> And I couldn't find a good saint of robots, but 450 years ago San Diego (ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didacus_of_Alcal%C3%A1) was famously depicted as an automaton by Juanelo Turriano (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juanelo_Turriano) and you can watch the frankly disturbing thing walk around and demonstrate prayer in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kie96iRTq5M
> 
> Also, palo verde are one of those lovely trees that is great in its home environment but is known to be highly invasive in, say, Australia, where it is considered a major pest. I happen to adore them, but ymmv.


	49. Alright, feels good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're earning more of our ratings here!

Michael got them both ankle-length dark blue terry cloth robes from the closet, then they headed down into the bunker beneath the house. The entire space seemed bigger, brighter, now Michael was there with him. Michael asked Alex to forward him the recommendation letters and he spent a minute futzing with selecting an acid-free paper to print them on before beginning the print job. All of that managed, he opened up a secure calling app on his laptop set-up against the far wall and placed the call.

Alex realized Michael hadn’t had a phone on him when they’d left the Time Agency; it was probably still back there. He made a mental note to grab it along with anything else Michael had had to leave the night before.

Alex was at the printer that was perched on the end of a lab bench on the other side of the bunker when the call connected. Her voice was older than when he’d last heard her, but still strong, still vibrant: “Michael, love. Are you ok?”

“I am, Mom, thanks to Alex and our friends,” Michael said, and then tilted the camera towards him. Alex gave a little wave, not wanting to crowd him in what was probably his first chance to speak with his mother in a month.

“Hi Alex,” Nora said. “Thank you, again, for protecting my son. I hear our family helped?”

“They did, ma’am,” Alex said, and he caught Nora shooting Michael a look at the honorific.

“I’m calling because I have something serious to ask, Mom.” Michael said, voice low. He sat down heavily in a rocking chair in front of his desk against the wall, hitching his legs over the arm in what looked like his regular position, tipping back and forth, back and forth.

Nora let Michael take his time. The printer started, laying letter after letter in Alex’s waiting palms, fine paper warm and smooth in his hands as he watched the mother and son holding space for each other.

Then Michael started, voice catching a little: “To get free, to get Alex free, to keep things from going so, so, so wrong last night when I was getting -- Mom, I had to kill Colonel Manes.” He spoke quickly: “He was going to kill me, or kill Alex.” Alex realized his body was tight, braced for shouting. But for a moment he tapped into the bond, and realized Michael felt none of that anticipatory fear. It was shocking, in a way, to realize that in that moment, Alex could sense Michael had no fear of rejection, no fear of his parent _at all_ , no guilt or hurt -- he was just seeking her advice on a difficult topic, knowing implicitly he would get the support he needed. Knowing he was loved, unconditionally.

Alex had no idea what to do with that, but be grateful Michael had that relationship.

“We left him there, dead on the floor of the lab where he’d been keeping me captive. I know Kyle kept you in the loop, but what -- what do you and the others, who survived Caulfield, want me to do with him? With Jesse Manes’s body?”

Her question came back immediately: “What does Alex want?”

Michael glanced back. “He is ok with me handling it. Is ok with you all making the call.” Alex nodded where Nora could see him as another letter came into his hands.

Nora’s voice soft but clear: “That is brave and kind of him -- and kind of you to offer to deal with this ugly chore. Hopefully the last hard thing you both need to do on your first real day together -- though, from what I can see, it looks like your first hours together are off to a good start.” And Alex found himself tucking the throat of the robe a little tighter around his neck even as Michael laughed with glee.

Nora shared his smile and then grew sober again: “I will ask my people. When do you need a decision by?”

“Tonight our time, tomorrow morning our time at the latest.”

“I will get to work then.” She said. As she moved to close the window, Michael leaned forward. “Another question, Mom.”

“Yes?” Her voice was patient, like she would wait until he had the words and be happy to hear them.

Another letter slid into Alex’s hands; this one from Stephanie Marie Demsky of San Francisco. He wished he’d known then, in Kuwait, that she’d felt that way about the Colonel, that he’d had an ally. But given she hadn’t been even allowed to show her real gender while in uniform, he understood her keeping that to herself.

Michael spoke in a rush. “Alex helped make sure I got an offer to run the Time Agency, if I want it. It’s something I’d suggested last month to some influential people, and it looks like the meme stuck. What do you think?”

She looked down at her hands, the darkness behind her growing richer in the contrast with her pale skin. The screen glitched for a moment, freezing her, reminding Alex of Rembrandt’s mother, aged and still so, so alive again the darkness of her room. 

Nora’s voice was clear when she said: “More than anything, I want you to be happy. I want you to rest. It’s been a long time since either of you have rested. Alex has been surviving and Michael, you’ve been so focused on preparing to undo the sins of the Time Agency, to get him free. I want you to have some time together, maybe slow down a bit.” Then she shook her head and laughed. “But I also know you both, Alex more by reputation than interaction, though I hope to change that soon. I know you both have a fire in you, a drive in you, to fix things. Things you did not break; things you should have been spared the shards of. But still, you persist in seeking to fix them, in learning enough to bring wholeness where there was none before. To seek justice.” She shrugged a shoulder. “The Time Agency is a tool. Its walls run red with blood, but also show the stretch marks and share the growing pangs of a better world.” She nodded to herself, firm and decisive: “Think if that is a burden you can bear -- both the death and the birth of it -- and then if this is the moment in your life to see new burdens. Then, decide for yourself.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Michael said, though Alex’s ears were still ringing with those words, that description of the place that had held his entire life to date -- _the death and the birth of it_. 

Michael’s voice was clear and soft: “I love you, Mom,” Michael said.

“I love you too, Michael. And Alex?” Alex’s head jerked up, hands tightening on the warm paper between his palms. “Make sure he gets enough sleep, alright?”

“I will.” He said, trying to make his voice clear and trustworthy.

“Good. I love you, too. Hope to see you both as soon as may be.”

And the screen went blank.

Michael turned to smile at him and Alex found himself returning it as the last letter lay itself in his hands. He looked down at the stack, straightening it out as he said: “Ma salama, I was just thinking that I have never, once, in my life asked a parent for advice if I didn’t know what they were going to say.” His shoulders tightened a little. “It’s -- I wish I could know how to want that. It sounded really -- “ _secure, loved, like Michael had the armor of a good childhood around him and knew it would protect him,_ “really nice. And that you could talk to her, about me, about us, and not feel --” _terrified, hunted, hated, ignored, abnegated, abandoned, crushed, unwanted, evil_. He swallowed, shaking his head, forcing himself out of that spiral. “It’s going to be a bit of a stretch, having a parent who loves you for who you are. Who you can trust.”

Michael spoke from the chair: “It is. It takes some getting used to, but having people you can trust, can count on, is really special.” 

He shut the laptop down, then swung his legs to the floor and stood, stretching his fingers up high towards the high bunker ceiling, air moving lazily through the intake fans, drifting across Alex’s face like a caress. When Michael dropped his arms and turned to Alex, he saw that the movement had stretched his robe above its knotted belt, making it gape open and inviting across his chest.

“Ma salama, I had a question, about something she said.” Michael tilted his head in question. Alex tried to explain: “I am not sure how to decode it. It’s like I’ve always only seen the world in shades of red and I’m so, so good at distinguishing between hues, but now it turns out that love is blue and I don’t know how to tell gentle teasing from legitimate criticism. Do you -- do you think she was alright, seeing us,” and he waved at the robes, not sure how to phrase it, “in more casual clothes?” 

Michael gave Alex a gentle smile: “Well, given that these were her Christmas present two years ago and that one,” he pointed to Alex’s, “she picked after spending entirely too much time trying to get me to give her your measurements, I’m pretty sure she’s ok with it.” He looked to the side, a mischievous grin rising on his face: “Do I think she knows I want to pop you up onto that lab bench and kiss you until you can’t breathe? Slide that robe off your shoulders, watch it pool around your hips, watch our robes tangle together on the floor while we tangle ourselves up in each other?” He shook his head. “I prefer not to think about my mother knowing about my sex life. It’s one of those boundaries that lets us have healthy conversations about other stuff.”

Alex swallowed hard: “That makes sense.” He was till trying to think past the sense-image of Michael’s hands on his hips, hefting him onto the bench, thighs spread and body tight against his. He asked: “So, is that what you want to do?”

Alex leaned back against the lab bench, bracing his hands against it, making a long line of his body: “put me up on this bench and kiss me?”

He wasn’t sure if Michael intended to share that crest of lust through their bond, but it hit him like a knee-high breaker all the same. 

“What do you want, Alex?” Michael asked, still standing carefully on the other side of the lab.

Alex looked him over, looked at the star charts and periodic table of elements behind him, the stretch of wall they’d cover with his letters of recommendation. He looked at the science projects, the robot snakes, the bits and bobs of alien tech. All the evidence of a life spent in loving pursuit of the tools necessary to make the world more just, more free. A life spent, in part, preparing to save him from a life he could not have gotten out of alone.

Then he looked at Michael, hands at his sides, curls a perfect halo around his face, eyes the same whiskeyshine they’d always been. Alex closed his eyes and felt their bond, felt it arching and tingling between them; felt the love that built and fueled and flowed across it.

He opened his eyes, meeting Michael’s: “I want you.”

And Michael was striding across the room, hands going to Alex’s hips and lifting him up on the table as Alex spread his thighs, welcoming him in. Michael licked his way inside Alex’s mouth with a sound of barely restrained want, Alex whispering his pleasure back to him, heel tight against his ass, tugging him in that little bit closer.

“Hands, mouths, something else,” Michael gasped against his lips before kissing him again, “what, what do you want?”

“Maybe,” Alex said, losing his train of thought as Michael nudged his head back, taking his time kissing hot and urgent down his throat. He tried again: “Maybe something simple and sweet, hands, here?” He said, reached between them to feel the firm arch of Michael’s cock against his palm as Michael swore and gasped into his collarbone and Alex nearly laughed with happiness.

“Works for me,” Michael said breathlessly. Alex swooped down to kiss him as Michael tucked his hands into Alex’s hair and held on, creating a tiny bit of space to unknot Michael’s belt, fingers feeling thick on the soft-rough of the navy fabric. Michael took advantage of the space to slide his palms up Alex’s thighs, sensation sweetly dulled by the cloth of the sweatpants. Alex treasured the muted sensation; if he’d felt the sweat-slick slide of Michael’s hands on his thighs just then, he was pretty sure he’d lose himself to it.

 _There_ , the knot undone, Alex broke the kiss, staring down as he _dragged_ the cloth back over Michael’s hips, hands braced against them, holding Michael where he could see him, cock already flushed, hard and curved and the most beautiful fucking thing he’d ever fucking seen.

“ _Fuck_ , Alex,” Michael managed, “the way it feels, when you look at me,” 

Alex met his eyes: “Yeah, love?” He said, holding Michael’s gaze as he drifted his hands back towards his front, one hand dropping low on his thigh but not touching, and the other hovering just above Michael’s tip. “How’s it feel?”

Michael’s breathing was uneven, hips rocking just that little, unconscious amount, desperate for any kind of friction. But still, he held himself back, tried to answer. “It feels good, like you’ve examined me and found me a prime specimen,” he muttered. “It feels like I’m good and yours and wanted.”

“Oh, Michael,” Alex murmured, hands softening, one palm going flat on this thigh, the other pressing against the low curve of his belly. “You _are_ good and wanted. I’m still yours and you’re still mine,” and grinned: “And you’re certainly the finest specimen I’ve ever seen.”

Michael swayed forward, just a little, cock just barely held away from Alex’s thighs. “You gonna leave a guy hanging?” He muttered, fingers flexing against Alex’s scalp.

“Would you like that?” Alex said, pulling himself forward on the bench until his hips were just on the edge, so there was no danger of any part of Michael touching the metal when he finally thrust against him. “Would you like me to stay here, so close, so close to touching you, so ready to touch you, but waiting, waiting for us both to want it so bad we can’t help ourselves, can’t help but fall together?”

Michael let out a shuddering breath, tongue tracing along his bottom lip. “I want,” he said, voice a little vague. He bit his lip, bringing himself back to himself: “I want you to touch me. And I want to get you out of that robe where I can see you.”

“You got it,” Alex said, slipping his hand down to cup Michael’s balls just as he slid his top hand down, cupped over Michael's tip with fingers trailing over the shaft, giving him something to buck up into. And Michael did, thrusting so hard with a groan that Alex nearly slid off the bench on the downstroke, his thighs’ tight grip around Michael’s hips the only thing that saved him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Michael muttered, slowing down, arms going around Alex’s back to give him something to brace against. “It’s just been a while is all,” 

“Don’t apologize,” Alex said, voice hushed in the space between them, “you getting so revved up is just about the sexiest thing I can think of.” Michael hummed and Alex stroked down his shaft just to hear that humming tone turn to a whine at the end. That feeling of self-satisfaction at giving Michael pleasure was back, warm and hot in his belly. After a few more strokes, he let go of his balls and reached up, nudging Michael’s arm out of the way to slide his robe off, keeping a steady rhythm. Michael let him move him around, sliding his arm out of the robe and then immediately reattaching himself to Alex, all while Alex never stopped touching his cock, until he was bare and thrusting between Alex’s legs. Seeing Michael try to be good, try to follow directions while still chasing his pleasure ticked something primal over in Alex’s stomach, something he hadn’t known he had to work with. 

“That’s some,” Michael tried and stalled out, voice already fucked-out and rough. He got it on the second try: “that’s some high-quality multi-tasking there, love.”

Alex snorted, but decided to go for it, to try the thing he was thinking of. “Michael, if you’re up for it, I thought we could play a game.”

“Yeah?” Michael said, hips slowing as he tried to focus: “What kind of game?”

“I was thinking,” Alex said, leaning down to lick his palm, cherishing the wet slide against Michael’s soft-hard flesh and greedy for the sound Michael made at the new sensation, “you could help me take my robe and sweats off, _but_ ,” and he slide his hand between Michael’s legs, scraping dull fingertips across the sensitive skin of his inner thighs, “you need to let me keep at least one hand on you at all times.”

And there it was, the struggle Alex had been enjoying, could feel Michael enjoying too: the puzzle-solving part of this, watching Michael figure out how to get what he wanted, _needed_ , inside the rules of the game.

“That sounds like fun,” Michael said, voice rough. “I can do that. But first, I want, I --”

“Whatever you need, Michael, I’m yours,” Alex said, keeping his grip tight enough to give Michael friction without racing them towards the finish line.

Michael inched closer to him, pulling Alex’s hips forward, palms big and steady on his hips, adjusting them both before arching long and hard against Alex’s sweats, Alex watching with a drying mouth as his stomach muscles flexed and worked. Another thrust, like he was trying to bury himself in the warm V of Alex’s body, _once, twice,_ a _third time_ , Alex writhing at the pressure and the urgency, Alex’s hands providing extra friction and touch but mostly just staying in contact as Michael rode out the surge of feeling. When Michael forced himself back, he took a breath, a bit of smile on his lips: “You ready to get undressed?”

Alex nodded, not sure he’d gathered his words together at the moment for anything more, hand still tracing a steady rhythm on Michael’s cock. 

Michael’s palms stayed on his hips -- and then he was floating, just a little bit, as Michael used his TK to shimmy Alex’s sweats off him, pant legs held wide and round to avoid catching on his prosthetic. The entire time, Alex kept moving his hands, pressure even and _there_ , sweat easing the way, concentrating on keeping touching Michael, giving him just enough stimulation to make this a challenge. 

Once the pants were pooled with Michael’s robe at their feet, he heard Michael murmur, voice hushed, focused, like he was heading towards some kind of high with the mix of physical pleasure and an achievable task: “Left arm first,” 

Alex nodded, letting go of Michael’s cock with that hand long enough to slip his arm out of the robe, bringing it right back to work as Michael’s breathing grew heavier, muscles in his stomach beginning to bunch with the effort.

“Now,” he tried, voice hovering low in his chest, “now your right, please,” 

Alex murmured: “Of course, love,” and let go, sliding his arm through. As Michael tossed the robe down at their feet and Alex floated, naked and held, he felt the breeze of the intake fans flatten and curve against his back, in the space between the body-warmed metal and his thighs, curling up around his cock. He realized Michael could probably get him off this way, no hands, just floating. The thought knocked him breathless and he tried to remind himself to hold it together long enough to make this work for Michael.

“Table,” Michael said, like that was the whole sentence, “table might feel a little bit chilly.”

“That’s just fine, love,” Alex said, something in Michael’s smell changing, something musky and sweet rising from him. He wanted him closer _now._

He hooked his free hand around the back of Michael’s neck, pressing his lips to his crown, feeling the sweat in the fine hairs there, Michael gasping, breathless and unsteady into the space between them.

“You did so good. As soon as you set me down, you should come when it feels good,” Alex whispered into his hair: “Come for me when it feels good.”

Michael gave a high keening sound, losing his sense of rhythm as he set Alex gently on the table, Alex tightening his thighs around Michael’s hips, lining both of their cocks up and grunting as they made contact on Michael’s first jerking motion forward, breath leaving him, and the next few moments, their bodies were sweat-slicked and reckless, Alex holding onto the nape of Michael’s neck and riding out every thrust with one of this own, Michael’s arms banded around Alex’s back, clinging hard, Alex’s face buried in his neck, mouth open to taste the sweet-salt of his skin. Chests pressed together, breathing as one, Alex felt himself rocketing towards the edge faster than he could ever remember before. When Michael made a small sound, like infinite relief, like coming home, it took Alex right over, bodies rocking out the last of their orgasms into the safety of each other’s bodies.

When Alex came back to himself enough that he could feel the sweat on his back starting to chill from the intake fans, he began to let his legs drop -- but Michael made a quiet hurt sound, burrowing himself closer into Alex’s body. So, Alex held on, hands going to Michael’s back, soothing, his head where it rested on his shoulder, drifting up and down the hard edges of his spine, gracing over the dips and curves, gently working across the well-used muscles of his lower back and around his wing bones, trying to give him a good feeling to come back to, come down to.

Alex continued his careful, soft-fingered exploration of every mappable curve of Michael’s body; he wanted to get to know his body so well he could form him from clay blindfolded, build a topography from heart’s memory alone. And for the first time since he’d fallen in love, he thought they might have the time to do it.

Alex felt it when the lights came back on for the man in his arms. Michael’s breathing changed, body straightening a little from its languorous slump. He took a shallow breath; then a long breath he shuddered out; then a normal one.

Alex asked: “You back with me, love?”

Michael nodded, head heavy on Alex’s shoulder.

Alex’s voice was hushed when he asked: “That was intense, huh?”

Another nod.

Alex twisted his mouth a little at himself: “Maybe something like that is something we should talk about, before doing again? I,” and he paused, “I’ve thought about it, before, being called good, being good and making you happy; I’ve thought about how good it would feel. For me. With you. I figured it might feel the same for you.”

“Praise kink paired with a little light power exchange, it’s a hell of a drug,” Michael muttered, face still smushed into Alex’s neck.

Alex frowned a little: “Ma salama, I’m not sure what that is.”

Michael pulled back, eyes blinking sleepily. Then a slow grin began to form on his well-kissed lips. “Oh, Alex. You and I are going to have so much fun together finding out.”


	50. feels good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is almost entirely smut; smut and feelings, feelings and smut. Enjoy!

They made it to the shower after a few more minutes of resting, gently urging each other back up the ladder and into the house, thoroughly soiled robes floating behind them at a discrete distance. In the bathroom, Alex was sitting on the comfortable bench that ran along the side wall before curving into the shower area. He was working his prosthetic off and breathing the steamy air Michael shaved, brushed his teeth, washed his hair and took a minute to enjoy his first unobserved shower in a month.

The bench was slatted darkwood, cantilevered out from the sealed grey slate of the wall that Michael had said reminded him of the creek beds in Pittsburgh. Michael had told him: “I toured Falling Water and all I ever wanted was a cantilevered _something_ so when I was redoing the house the time we saw each other in the laundry room, I got the contractor to put this in.”

That had been a few minutes ago, and Alex had been thinking while he admired the shower. There was a glass wall that was all that separated the massive, double-headed shower from the rest of the bathroom -- a slight slope towards the drain kept the water from flooding the sturdy red tile floor, but it was about as accessible and beautiful as a space could be. 

Alex rubbed his hand along the well-sealed wood, and murmured, voice mixing with the sound of the falling spray: “I wanted to see if you were interested in trying something, something I’ve done before but, ma salama, not under positive circumstances.”

Michael popped his head around the glass partition and without the steamed glass to hide him, Alex realized for the past minute Michael had been shaping his hair into a single giant, soapy curl at the top of his head. Alex started laughing, heart feeling like it was grown two sizes bigger.

Michael preened a little, doing a little runway strut and modeling his big white hair curl. Alex put his hand on his ribs, trying to stop himself from getting a stitch in his side, he was giggling so hard.

“Yes?” Michael said in a matronly tone, “can I _help_ you?”

Alex closed his eyes; he really, actually could not finish a sentence while watching a wet and silly Michael Truman flounce around in his glorious nakedness in front of him.

To the insides of his eyelids, he said: “I was thinking of kinds of shower sex, or, something we could start in the shower and finish in the bedroom.” He took a breath. “Ma salama, I’ve given and received penetrative sex before, on missions, and it wasn’t a great experience. I don’t want us to run face-first into -- into what Kyle would call a trigger.” He took a hopeful breath, feeling a trickle of calm and support through their bond. “But it went alright -- great -- with oral last time and I really like the idea of you inside me, I just,” he squeezed his eyes closed a little tighter. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up I might, uh, get lost in my head about it?”

Michael’s voice was careful, even: “Would you be able to tell me, or give me some kind of sign, that you’re getting lost in your head about it?”

Alex thought about it, really thought about it, running his fingertips over the edges of the bench. Always appearing normal and ok at all times, boxing-up his feelings, had been something he’d always considered one of his biggest assets as an asset. In the past few months, he’d started to think about whether having a panic attack and no one around him knowing or being able to react to it was really as helpful a learned skill as he’d always thought it was, since now he had people who might actually care and want to help. But he thought about how Michael would feel, if Alex pretended to be ok while they were having sex, when he was actually suffering. His stomach twisted at the thought. He thought how upset he would be if he ever found out that Michael was doing the same, faking his way through. It suddenly seemed really, really important that he be able to tell his own feelings in real-time and with some accuracy. 

Alex also knew, with absolutely certainly, that he wasn’t there yet. He had no idea what he was feeling sometimes, and sometimes emotions came and went too fast for him to tell what they had been, other than intense. He knew when he was happy with Michael, knew how he felt with his friends. But the soup of emotions that had been sloshing around him today, all the emotional intensity they’d been wading through together, had made it really clear that always knowing what he was feeling, where his head was at, was not a skill he currently had. 

Michael's voice broke through: “I have an idea how how we could do it, if you’re not sure if you’d be able to just pop out and say if something’s not working?”

Alex nodded gratefully. “I’d love to hear it -- and I want to be there, to _get_ there, where I can just say what I’m feeling, when something, when something hits like that.” He took a breath. “It’s a definite therapy goal.”

“Good goal,” Michael said, voice gentle and at an odd height. Alex opened his eyes to see Michael had slid down the wall, was sitting on the bench where it curved into the shower, magnificent hair art held carefully out of it. “So, my idea. How about we talk about it the whole time. You tell me what you’re feeling, I’ll tell you what I’m feeling. It’s like grounding and sex, all at once. I think it would be hard to get too lost in your head if you’re describing what’s actually happening at that particular moment, right here and now, between us. Would that work?”

And that was -- hot and sweet and did the magic work of both making Alex’s dick perk up and his swirling mind simmer down.

He tilted his head to the side: “It sounds perfect, love. How’d you get so smart?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” Michael grinned: “So you want to come here or are you going to keep rubbing a hole in our bench?”

Alex looked down to see he was still smoothing his finger against the wood of the bench and pulled his hand away. He levered himself to standing, using the bars along the walls to move independently through the growing mists to join Michael on the shower bench. Michael handed him his soap, something simple and clean smelling, and turned on the other shower head, the one that was wall-mounted but attached to a flexible burnished steel hose. He ran it until the temperature was good and handed it over to Alex. Alex had seen showers like this, ones that had been built from the ground-up to be accessible, in some of the pamphlets he’d gotten after he’d lost his leg. But he’d never used one.

He soaped up and rinsed off. Michael had his eyes closed as he fashioned his hair into a crown under the other showerhead, humming something that Alex suspected was a Genevieve song and rocking out to it a little, hips swaying in the spray. Alex got another handful of the bodywash, lathered it up, and reached behind himself, using one finger and then two to make sure he felt clean enough to have anyone else near that part of his body. He wasn’t sure if there was a special ritual or prep or something, and he figured he could ask, but as a baseline, he wanted to start at a place where he felt good about any part of Michael being in or around his ass.

Once he’d rinsed off again, he sat back, enjoying the spray and the warm mist -- and most of all, getting to watch Michael finish perfecting his conditioner crown. It lit up a special part of him, seeing someone he loved so much being so silly and so happy.

“Once the Air Force closes out my contract and I don’t have to go on missions anymore,” Alex said, “I was thinking of growing my hair out. Then maybe you can teach me the ways of your fancy hairstyles.”

“Yes,” Michael said, voice mock-serious, wiggling his fingers through his hair as he closed his eyes, leaning forward into the spray as the shower washed the conditioner out, leaving his curls loose, dark waves around his face. “I would be delighted to share my wisdom when it comes to the diverse and complex rules of hair topiary.”

“What about the rules of getting ready to have anal sex?”

Michael plopped himself down on the bench, snuggling up close to him, and Alex had to close his eyes, the feeling of touching a wet and shower-warm Michael from shoulder to thigh a little much at this particular moment. Michael sighed in pleasure at the contact, leaning in a little closer. He continued: “So, there’s no rulebook or anything. But generally, having a shower beforehand and doing usual cleaning is just fine. Being really thorough if we're planning on rimming or anything, but I figured from what you said, penetrative sex, with condoms until we both get tested, with you receiving, was what you were interested in?”

Alex nodded: “For today’s activities; and let’s get tested sooner rather than later, but yes, that’s a good plan. I figure we’ve got time to try other stuff out,” he tucked a small smile into his cheek, “since we’ve won all the time we could want.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, brushing his lips across the curve of Alex’s shoulder. “Yeah, we do.” He took a breath, and Alex could feel his exhale against his wet skin. “So, I was thinking we could use some of that silicone-based lube in the honeymoon basket, and we could both have fun touching you, then dry off and finish off in the bedroom?”

“Perfect,” Alex said and Michael gestured, the door opening and the lube bottle shaped like an artillery cartridge came bounding in, unwrapping and popping its top, getting the little drip-barrier in the trashcan and then rescrewing its own lid back on. Then it slid to a stop beside Alex’s hip with a flourish. Alex stifled a laugh as he continued: “We’ll have to put sheets on the bed; it’s still stripped from making the nest.”

“And I’ve got crutches in the hall closet, if you’re comfortable using them. I just didn’t want the pads to get all soggy in the steamy shower air.”

Alex reached over, turning Michael’s chin with a fingertip until he was facing him. “I saw the crutches in the pantry closet when I was here last night. Have I told you yet how much it means to me, how much obvious effort you’ve put into making this house someplace we can both be? The benches, and railings, the stools, the crutches; all of it? It makes me feel so, incredibly loved and cared for.”

Michael grinned and parting his lips easily when Alex leaned in, enjoying the slick slide of it as his hands began to grace across Alex’s chest.

“Want to start like this?” Michael murmured between kisses.

“Yeah,” Alex breathed. “And I’m telling you what it feels like?”

Michael hummed in approval and Alex felt himself bloom a little at the sound. 

“Ok,” he said, kissing along Michael’s jaw as Michael’s hands trailed down his arms, tangling in their fingers and drawing their fingers down to between his thighs. “So, I can feel you touching the insides of my thighs and I like that, I like how close and comfortable you are.” He enjoyed the slow stroking way Michael’s was guiding his up his thigh, to the base of his cock. Alex spread his knees wider, bracing his foot on the floor as he pressed his other limb against Michael’s thigh.

“Yeah,” Michael said encouragingly, licking a stripe up Alex’s throat, fingers working the hard muscles of Alex’s thighs. “I like how you feel too, those strong muscles, proof you’ve survived and done so much for so many people, that you’ve kept yourself safe and protected.”

Alex felt a blush rise and rubbed his forehead against Michael’s wet curls. He ran his palm up his own cock, back arching into the feeling, enjoying the brief intake of air that signaled Michael’s reaction to the sight.

“How’d that feel?” Michael said and Alex hummed.

“Good, really good. Not as good as when you do it, but knowing you’re here, enjoying it with me, it makes it even better.” 

Michael pressed his palm over the back of Alex’s hand on the next stroke, adding pressure that had Alex’s toes curling before guiding his hand down the muscled curve of his thigh. “And now?”

“I can feel my gun callouses,” Alex gasped, “and how your hand is bigger than mine; makes me feel held and safe.” Michael stroked their hands down over his balls, aiming for his perineum, sliding Alex’s middle finger softly against the sensitive skin, and Alex spoke without prompting: “I can feel my muscles clenching with each touch, like I want something in me, like I’ll feel better, whole, filled-up with you.” He closed his eyes, lolling his head against Michael’s shoulder, letting out a heavy breath. “You inside me, oh, _Michael_ , I dreamed about that. Wanted that. Wanted to touch you and be touched by you.”

“Me too, love,” Michael murmured, popping open the lube and pulling their hands back out to drizzle the waterproof stuff all over their fingers. 

Alex huffed a laugh: “It’s so messy,” he said with a smile.

Michael shrugged the shoulder Alex was resting his head on. “Sheets wash and so do robes; nothing between us should ever hurt, so using a ton of lube is part of that.”

“‘Nothing’?” Alex echoed, voice sounding a little more fragile than he'd planned. Michael pressed a kiss to his crown, holding him close.

His voice was quiet, contemplative when he said: “I’m sure we’ll both fuck up and hurt each other, emotionally, maybe even small pain, physically; not using enough lube, picking a position that fails spectacularly. Being close with someone, being vulnerable with them, means risking that. But I can promise to never hurt you intentionally and to always make it right if I do it by accident.”

Alex bit his lip, voice wavering a little bit: “Me too. I never want to hurt you either. I don’t know -- ma salama I don’t know how to do this, do any of this, but I want to try. I really, really want to try.”

“Hey,” Michael said, pressing a warm, soft kiss to his lips. “It’s day one and we’re doing great. I trust you to do you best, Alex. I always have.”

“Love you,” Alex said, pulling their hands back down his thighs.

“Love you too,” Michael said, breath catching as Alex guided the tip of his finger inside himself, Michael’s finger tracing around the edge of his opening.

“I love the feeling of us touching together, like I know you won’t push past where I am, but also like, I have to think about whose fingertip is whose, like we’re doing something together.”

Michael’s voice was a low murmur, the heat of it far outpacing the shower. “I love how warm you are, how I can feel you relaxing against our fingers, trying to make space.” He brushed his lips against the shell of Alex’s ear, and Alex sighed at the feeling, “I love getting to hear you,” he fingers curled a little, their sides brushing across Alex’s skin, and he breathed, sliding his finger deeper inside.

He glanced down to where their wrists curved together between his thighs and then closed his eyes, sensations too much to see and also feel: “I’m imagining getting on the bed with you, laying down, slick and open. You tracing your fingers across my back, tracing patterns and diagrams and timelines and ideas, all as you,” and he nudged another finger at his entrance, the lube still slick and everywhere. He made space, body relaxed enough it felt tight but good, Michael’s fingers still playing around his entrance, “all as you slowly work your way inside, make space for yourself,”

Michael groaned, low and sustained, and even through the smell of soap and the pounding water of the shower, Alex could smell his arousal. He kept going, feeling like he was loose enough for another finger, “I want one of your fingers inside me, I want to feel you moving against me.”

He felt Michael nod, motion a little jerky, but when he tried, the stretch felt wrong, a little too close to pain --

“Pause,” he gasped and Michael did, still and careful beside him. Alex took a breath, “I think this angle is wrong for both of us to be in there, maybe,” he opened his eyes, looking down, thinking a little sluggishly about the body mechanics.

“You could come over and sit on my lap,” Michael offered, and Alex felt himself writhe a little at the thought, bearing down on his own fingers.

But: “I think that’ll be too slippery in the shower,” Alex said. He thought for a moment: "How about, if you tuck my stump under your knee, just enough to anchor me, and I'll put my arm over your shoulders -- ” they did, Alex relishing the firm weight of Michael’s leg over his, “and then,” he flexed his core, pulling his knee to his chest, planting his foot by his hip, and bracing himself open. Then he shifted his hips forward so he was open and exposed, with enough room for both of them to have access.

“You are way flexible and I am never _ever_ getting that visual out of my head; nor do I want to,” Michael said. Alex brought Michael’s hand over, pressing his fingers against his opening. 

“I’d like to feel you inside me,” Alex murmured, hissing in pleasure as Michael’s finger slipped in, “I love knowing you’re in me,” and Alex moved a slick finger alongside his, the feeling of fullness roiling in his belly. “Let’s try that third finger again,” and Alex breathed and Michael went slow, and the stretch of it was exquisite, tempting, made Alex want to slide right over onto his lap, sink onto him, slippery shower-tiles be damned.

His heart rate started to kick-up, breathing coming harder, as Michael moved their fingers nearly entirely free of Alex’s body, Alex feeling himself trying to hold onto them, muttering: “It feels empty, when we move away, and the stretch, it’s good, perfect even, but it’s not enough. It’s too -- too delicate, too careful,” he heard Michael make a sound of disagreement, but he had to finish his thought: “I want to feel your hips bucking against mine, like it was in the bunker, hard and insistent and _there_ , so I _know_ you’re there. So I can feel you for days.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, moving his fingers a little more, changing the angle some, “sounds like a good fantasy for a different day. Unless it’s a big deal, I want to take my time with you today. Make sure everything only feels good, nothing hurts, not even a little bit. We can push those boundaries later, get to know how far we can go, how intense we like it to get. But for today, you ok if we make this soft, keep it tender?”

And Alex melted, his body relaxing just that bit more, the idea that Michael wanted to hold him carefully, it was -- it was a lot.

His voice was low when he said: “I guess I’m new to the idea that anything can be a job well done without bruises to show for it.”

Michael paused, seeming to think that through. “I can’t say I’m excited about the idea of leaving bruises on you,” he said, rubbing his cheek against Alex’s shoulder, catlike and cheek smooth from his shave, “particularly not until we’ve gotten more of a chance to get to know each other’s bodies, to set a baseline of safety and comfort. But after that, and once we’re at a place where talking about sex is as comfortable as having sex, then --” and he gave a little bit of a shrug, the movement sending shivers up Alex’s body. “Then I’m game to talk about anything that’s safe, sane, and consensual.” 

Alex smiled, easing their fingers out, setting them on Michael’s knee before turning to kiss the ball of Michael’s shoulder. His voice was muffled, but he was certain Michael could hear him: “Can I say, it’s kind of amazing getting to be with someone who can set boundaries? It just,” he frowned a little, twining his fingers around Michael’s in the warm spray, “it feels like a safetynet. Like, I can trust you to tell me what’s ok and what isn’t; I can trust you to not let me push you. So much of my life, my entire job in some ways, was about making people do what they didn’t want to. So I get this idea, sometimes, that I can push anyone, even people I desperately want to protect, don’t want to push at all. And knowing that you won’t let me push you, that you’ll tell me the boundary is there long before I come up against it,” he smiled, hearing the love in his own voice: “It’s something special.”

“I’m glad you see it that way,” Michael said, something wry in his tone, “my counselor in college always told me that no one will ever thank you for setting boundaries, but setting them lets you have a part of yourself you might not ever get back otherwise. Boundaries give you space to think; space for your own integrity. And, for what it’s worth, long before I talked to her, I learned that from you.”

“Me?”

Michael squeezed his hand where they rested together on his thigh: “You. You, when I was 10 and had run away from Jared and Marie and you said I could yell all I wanted if I did it while walking to the Sheriff's station with you, because it was important that I was safe and home. You, when you promised me on that same trip you wouldn’t change my past without asking me -- and then you kept that promise in spite of everything. You, when I was 15 and wanted to take pictures of your implant and you told me I could but not touch it. You, when I was 16 and drunk and you protected me, got me home, and explained to me in a way I could understand why I needed to protect myself better. You, when I was 20 in Doha. And you, every time you knew something about my future, or I knew something about yours, we talked about whether and how we’d like to share that. You taught me to set and keep boundaries, to communicate about them before I needed to police them, and how to hold firm.”

Alex’s face was flushing and it wasn’t from the shower. He muttered: “You know that was just me applying what Kyle had taught me like, the day before, right?”

And Michael shook his head: “I know Kyle was a good role model, but you demonstrated good boundaries in our first meeting. You asked if I wanted a hug and I said no. You let me decide how I wanted to be healed, how I wanted to handle Mr Ridley; you told me to stay 6 feet back, so I wouldn’t get hurt. That was days before you started living with Kyle, before he started building his case for Best Friend of the Year.” He paused as Alex huffed a laugh. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, think about it in the context of your life for the past few months, for the 28 years before that. And I think, especially in those early days, you were trying to give me exactly what you would have wanted and needed, when you were my age. One to one. You would have wanted to have someone stand up for you, to get you to safety, to act in your best interest without consideration for themselves. You would have wanted an adult who gave you privacy and freedom and love and care, who told you you were smart and hardworking and kind. So that’s what you gave me.”

Alex didn’t know where to look, burying his face in Michael’s shoulder to hide from the strength of the feelings he was having. Michael rubbed his thumb over Alex’s biceps, pressure warm and steady and grounding.

Alex blinked back moisture, trying to find his words. “I’m glad it worked. Every mission, I was prepared to never see you again. I had no idea if what was bringing us together would keep it going. So I tried to make peace with that. And I did it by trying to make sure, when I ended every visit, I could believe that I had left your life better than I had found it.” He took a hard breath. “But I’m so glad I got to see you every year. I’m so glad and grateful that the people who designed the implants, they had enough faith in humanity to hope we could find peace, that two people could build a love like this.”

“Me too,” Michael said, gripping Alex’s shoulder tightly for a moment before letting go. “Me too, love.” 

He let that sit for a moment, then said, in a lighter tone: “You still up for doing more?”

Alex nodded, his heart picking up its rhythm at the idea: “I am if you are.”

Michael’s eyes twinkled with heat. “Alright, so, we’ll dry off, make the bed, then get it all messy again?”

“Sounds like a plan -- can you hand me the towel?”

“Towel -- oh!” Michael said. “You’re gonna love this.”

He jerked his head at the shower’s temperature lever and it shut off the water. Then he carefully let go of Alex’s fingers and raised his hand like an orchestral conductor and waved it through the air -- pulling with it every single water droplet on each of their bodies. All of the water raced together into a single tall waterspout, whirling and twirling, collecting all of the water from the walls of the shower, beneath their feet, under the benches. Then it whirled over to the drain and spiraled right down into it.

A moment later, they were desert dry and Alex was grinning in delight.

“I wish I’d had you with me in Lagos the last time I was there,” Alex muttered, reaching for the crutches as the door opened to the hallway and Michael pulled them through the air. “I was wet the entire time.”

Michael chuckled, moving to the hallway closet to start pulling sheets out, what looked like soft blue cotton.

As Alex followed him towards the bedroom, he heard Michael call back: “That’s the other thing we can start to plan -- what kinds of trips we want to take.”

“I think your mother is hoping we’ll visit Libya soon,” Alex said and Michael nodded. Before he could say anything else, Alex continued. “I’d like that too; that night at Wow-a-Namous was life-changingly perfect and beautiful, but I’d like to see the country where your people live now for more than 1000 seconds.”

Michael turned a brilliant smile to him. “I don’t think Isobel would have it any other way.”

“We could make it a group trip? I think Rosa’s been pining.”

“Probably,” Michael said. “They do tend to pine for each other, when they’re not fucking like wildcats or planning to dominate the world.”

Alex shook his head: “Sounds like tinder and a spark, the two of them.”

"More like two kinds of fireworks but yeah, incendiary for sure."

Michael began to tuck the corners of the fitted sheet around the stripped bed and Alex moved over to the side of the bed where some battered copies of _Ender’s Game_ and _Ender’s Shadow_ were taking up the end of the shelf of presents he brought Michael. He traced his finger down their spines. “Did you end up liking these?” He asked.

“I did,” Michael smiled, tucking in the second corner. “‘The enemy’s gate is down,’” he said in a faux-serious voice. “Orson Scott Card’s politics suck, of course, but I loved Bean and all those tough questions about war. It was a good book to give me.”

“I’m glad, it meant a lot to me when I was that age.”

“I love that you shared your favorite things with me,” Michael said, tucking in the final corner. “I’m looking forward to introducing you to the wonders of videogames and hiking on the reservation and every other good thing I can think of.”

Alex opened the nightstand’s drawer, pulling out a condom and some lube, and sitting on the bed, moving up it until his back was against the headboard, leaning the crutches against the nightstand.

“I can see a good thing right there,” Alex said, gesturing as Michael's eyes widened a little at the attention, “but I need a closer examination to tell for sure.”

“Happy to oblige,” Michael said, kneeling on the bed to crawl between Alex’s legs and sprawl there. Alex buried his hands in Michael’s still-soft curls, enjoying the way they moved around his fingers; and living for the way Michael’s face looked as he closed his eyes from the feeling. He started behind his ears, stroking like he was tucking his hair back; then a little higher, arcing over the smooth curves of his skull where the thin bone protected his temporal lobes; then a little higher, tracing across his crown before grounding his fingers at the nape of his neck. Michael sighed, pillowing his head on Alex’s stomach, tucking his fingers just under his back. 

Alex closed his eyes, content to just feel this for a bit as the warm sun filtered through the blinds and the room smelled with the fresh-washed smell of them both.

Eventually though, Michael’s warm breath and slight movements were enough to get Alex’s cock back in the game, and Michael chuckled the next time it twitched in interest against his chest.

“It’s not the boss of us,” Alex said severely, “we can keep cuddling; it’ll get the picture.” Michael snorted and propped himself up on his arms, gazing down at Alex. 

“I’m absolutely down for the original plan if you are.”

“I am -- if I flipped over, you think that would work?”

“Perfect. First, just --” and Michael leaned up, kissing Alex and Alex opened for him, hands tightening in his curls just a touch, just to hear him moan with the change in tension. Michael lined them up, then ground down, Alex’s eyes threatening to roll back into his head, barely holding himself back from bucking up into Michael; but only barely.

“Want to put the condom on me?” Michael asked and Alex blinked, that phrasing bringing something back to Alex, something in a Russian accent, something he didn’t want to think about in this context. His breathing caught high in his chest, hand over his mouth - drowning -for a moment and he gasped:

“Pause, pause --”

And Michael pulled away, rolling to the side and giving him breathing room. Alex pressed his hand to his chest, trying to breathe past the shade of a memory. Michael tucked a knee over his hip, present but not pushing. Alex started talking: “I can feel where your lips were, where you knee is against me.” He flexed his fingers and Michael’s hand joined his. “I can feel your calluses, how hard you are in some places and soft in others.” Michael tucked his head against Alex’s shoulder, hair tickling the bare skin. “I can feel your curls, your glorious, amazing curls. I love touching them and I love when you like me touching them.”

“I love when you touch them too. I think you could knock me out in minutes if we were just on the couch at the end of the long day, my head in your lap, just running your fingers through my hair.” His smile filled his voice. “That’s the image I used to get myself to sleep, the last month. I wasn’t sure what you’d be up for, interested in, but I was pretty sure a lot of shared naps would be on the menu.”

Alex laughed a little, the tension in it more than he would have liked but it was still there, still genuine. “Definitely lots of naps.” He took a breath. “But first, I’d like to try again. Did that,” he bit his lip before continuing, “did that work, me telling you I needed to pause?”

“That was really good, love. It gave me the information I needed. It worked for you, me stopping the activity but not stopping touching you?”

“That worked really well; I think if you’d, like, reared back and went to go stand on the other side of the room, I would have felt like a freakshow and pretty rejected. This way, it was -- a pause. Until I could figure my brain out.”

“That’s how I hoped it would work, I’m glad it did.” Michael traced their shared fingers across Alex’s sternum. “So, how about, I get myself ready, you roll on over, and keep your legs together. I’ll straddle your hips, enjoy touching your back and getting you ready for me, and you’ll tell me how it feels? Then, when and if you say, I’ll ease in and we’ll have some fun?”

Alex shivered at the thought. “Yes, though I don’t think it will take long to get to that part.” He tightened his body. “I’m feeling pretty ready.”

“There’s no clock,” Michael said easily, moving back to give Alex room to roll over, settle down before swinging his leg over. He seated himself on Alex’s hips and something washed over Alex, something like a wave of calm. 

“I -- was that you?”

“Was what me?”

“I just -- when you settled your weight on me, when I could feel how close you were, my whole body kind of relaxed. Is that a bond thing?”

He felt Michael settled his hands on his upper back, feeling his skin tingling from the contact. “I don’t think so -- I think it’s just a touching-someone-you-love thing. For me, at least, feeling you laying on me last night, it’s -- it’s like the ultimate grounding. Like I was there because you wanted me there and I wasn’t going to move unless you knew about it.”

Alex swallowed, adjusting his dick against the sheets: “Definitely something to explore more of later, because I’ve licked batteries that had less of a kick than that.”

He could hear the chuckle in Michael’s voice: “One of the powers we haven’t talked about yet is that my people can direct electricity. Once I learned control, it made designing robots a lot of fun, always knowing where my current would flow before I checked the designs.” He smoothed his hands down Alex’s back in a long line, that tingling feeling of contact trailing after his fingertips. “I can show you later.”

“I want to see everything you can do,” Alex said, voice growing lazy with the soft touches. “I want to know everything you want to share.”

“I want that too, love,” Michael said, bending down to press a warm kiss to the center of Alex’s spine. “More than anything, I want that.”

Alex pillowed his head on his arms, smiling into his forearm and wiggled his hips a little. “You gonna get yourself ready?”

“Impatient, are we?”

Alex grumbled good-naturedly: “I don’t think fingering for 15 minutes in the shower, then cuddling, then making out, then getting to feel your thighs on either side of mine like I’m a rogue bronco you’re going to tame counts as impatient.”

“Fair,” Michael said, and Alex heard the crinkle of the condom packet, then a slick sound of it being rolled down Michael’s shaft. He felt his body shudder. Michael murmured, voice a little rough: “That was a good reaction, what’re you thinking about, love?”

Alex tried to explain: “It’s -- hearing you get ready but not seeing it makes me imagine the shape of your hand on you, the way you curve around yourself, the way your cock stretches against the latex.” He took a tight breath. “How it will feel, to have you inside me, your body pushing against mine.” He looked back over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Michael’s face, eyes hungry with it. “I think you should see how ready I am. If it’s time to just slide in.”

“Fuck, Alex,” Michael said, “ok, are you ready for my hand?”

Alex arched his back, trying to hold back what felt like a keening sound from deep in his chest: “Fuck, yes,”

Michael trailed two slick fingers down his cleft, rubbing around his rim as Alex breathed, heart rate kicking up. “It’s this thing, you touching me,” Alex murmured into his arm, “every single thing I trust you with, you reward, you keep my trust. So it feels incredibly vulnerable, and incredibly safe, trusting you with my body.”

“I’ll always keep you safe,” Michael said. “With everything I have to give. Always." A long breath, then: "Ready?”

“Yes, _please_ ,” Alex said and Michael pressed his fingertip gently against his entrance, Alex’s body welcoming him in. It only took a few seconds for Alex to whisper: “More, please, I want to feel the rest of you.”

“You’re opening up so well for me, love,” Michael said and Alex blushed into his forearm. “I love getting to feel you clench around me, hear your breathing change, see your body move with it. Do you have room to touch yourself? Your hand on your cock, while I’m inside you; that would probably feel amazing.”

Alex reached down, arching his hips up off the bed enough to get his hand around his cock, finding a good angle for his wrist, then trying an experimental thrust. He gasped with it and Michael chuckled, a soothing hand running down his back.

“I’m putting in the second, keep holding on for me,” 

“Will do,” Alex said, body opening around Michael’s second finger, “I love how it’s not just in-and-out, that I can feel you exploring inside me, getting to know what I’m like,” he said, voice muffled but feeling Michael could understand him. He tried a slow thrust into his fist, Michael’s fingers following along with him, sliding deeper at the top of his arch. “I can take another, _please_ , Michael,”

“I love getting to hear you say my name that way, love,” Michael said, drizzling some more lube on him, cool and then quickly warming. “I love hearing you talk, knowing you’re here with me.”

He slowly added another finger, Alex moaning with it. “I feel so filled but I keep imagining what it will be like, feeling all of you in me, filling me up, your hips flush to mine, getting to feel the rhythm of your body against mine,” Alex said, breaths coming harder. He squeezed his cock, trying to calm down to at least last until Michael was fully inside of him. Michael worked him a little more, then paused, taking a breath.

“The way you look, Alex, laid out under me, body touching mine, I could live in this moment forever.” He took a long breath. “But I won’t edge you any more, we can talk about if that’s a kind of play we want to get more into later; for now, are you ready for me?”

Alex thought about it, thought about how his body felt, how loose and comfortable he was around Michael’s fingers, how much he _ached_ for him.

“Please,” he managed to say. “Please, I want you in me.”

“I’ve got you, love,” Michael said, shifting back, gently rearranging Alex’s legs. “Tell me what you're feeling?”

Alex's voice felt like it was floating out of his brain, reaching his lips without any conscious thought: “It feels like being moved by someone I trust, trust enough with my body to let you move me. That my _body_ trusts, because my brain and heart and body have not always been on the same page. But they are with you. With you, I feel so safe.” He felt Michael line up his cock, could imagine him, hand on the base, eyes focused and breathing hard. He pulled his fingers out and then slid in, and Alex’s vision nearly whited out, the heat and slide and stretch of it, his voice coming out in a low groan.

He managed: “Oh, fuck, oh, wow, Michael, that’s -- _Jesus_ ,” and Michael pulled back out, head of him catching on Alex’s rim in a way that almost made him buck.

“The way you look,” Michael said breathlessly, “you’re fucking exquisite, Alex. Fuck,” and he slid back in, going a little deeper as Alex pressed his teeth into his forearm, not hard enough to bruise the skin, but enough to get him his language back. 

“It’s like every nerve I’ve got is ringing out the cathedral bells, like voices crackling across the city, except my body is the city,” he said, knowing he wasn’t making any sense, but these feelings were too intense to make sense.

Michael thrust again, bottoming out, and Alex pushed his hips back until he could feel the sweat of Michael’s thighs on his, their hair rough against each other, grounding when compared with the too-perfect slick slide of Michael’s cock.

Alex stroked his hand down his own dick, making a high sound at the feeling. “I’m not going to last much longer, can you, are you --”

“Yeah, I can be close, just seeing you like this gets me close. Fuck, love,” Michael said, pulling back and then inching back in as Alex began to pick up the pace, setting a tight rhythm with himself.

“Knowing you’re touching yourself, knowing you’re clenching around me, it’s fucking incredible, Alex. Fucking cosmic. I can’t wait to do this with you for fucking _years,_ ” 

And Alex’s breath hitched, his body coming undone at the love in Michael’s voice, the connection, the promise of _years_. Three more hard strokes and he was coming, Michael staying inside of him, gasping as the tremors washed through him. Michael’s hands on his hips held him steady as his orgasm wracked through him, easing him down to flat once the biggest waves had crested and settled down. Once Alex could breathe again, he twitched his hips back: “You want to?” he asked, voice a little vague.

“You’re not over sensitive? I can finish off outside if it’s not comfortable.” 

Alex clenched his muscles, tucking away the surprised, fucking intoxicating groan Michael gave him. He was a little sensitive, but he liked it; _another way to be a sensation junkie_ , he thought.

“I’m good -- I like the intensity of it, and I want to feel you come.”

He nearly heard Michael’s throat click as he swallowed. “You’ve got it, love.”

And then he was moving, keeping his body slow, each thrust dragging nearly all the way out, and then cinching in as close as he could get.

Alex kept talking: “I can feel the space you’ve made for yourself inside me, can feel how you’re filling every inch of me when you’re inside, my body feels so good with you, so perfect, you’re perfect, _Michael_ ,” and he arched back against Michael, bearing down as Michael’s breath caught, body nearly there, held on the edge of a precipice.

Then Alex looked into the bond, and opened it, just a smidge, just enough to let Michael see, _feel_ how he felt, how hot and real and intense and loved and wonderful it was.

“Oh, _Alex_ ,” Michael said, and then he was coming, his own release only cresting over the bond, Alex getting flash after white-hot flash of sensation, powerful surges of feeling, and at the core of it all: love.


	51. so be cool

After they recovered a bit and cleaned up -- Alex was never  _ ever _ going to get over the convenience of being in love with a man who could flop his hand and have a fresh, warm wet cloth come dancing into the room -- they decided to forage for some more food. Michael heated up some maqluba and disassembled the nest while Alex lounged on the couch in a pair of Michael’s PJs with little cartoon snakes wiggling down the sides s as the scent of cardamom and rice filled the house.

“After we eat, are you ok going to Kyle’s with me to pickup my things?” Alex asked over the back of the couch.

“You said he was taking a spa week?”

“Yep,” Alex said, stretching back over the arm of the couch to watch Michael bopping around the room, assembling a snack plate from all of the good things he was finding in the honeymoon baskets and all the treats he’d squirreled away waiting for Alex to catch-up with him.

“How about, I’ll check my email to see if my Mom’s replied, you get started on these snacks,” he said, depositing the platter on the bench that served as a side table and extra seating in a pinch, and pressing a kiss to Alex’s mouth, “and then we head over to Kyle’s to rescue your olives and get the rest of your stuff?”

“Works for me,” Alex said, grinning. He kept forgetting, second to second, that he was allowed this, this simple happiness of having Michael touch him, kiss him, feed him, just because he was here. He snagged a bit of candied ginger, munching on it as he checked his phone.

A quick update from Rosa -- she was enjoying the hot tub in her room in El Paso, was planning on going hiking in the morning. Liz and Max had sent a half-blurry picture just before they lost cellphone receptions in the mountains. And Kyle had sent him three (3) photos of the spa treatment checklist he’d filled out upon arrival, with the note: “these are for all the nerves I frayed in the past 2 months with you two xD jkjk; looking forward to seeing you both when I get back!”

Alex got a ping from Undersecretary Power: “Confirming that your clearances are still in-tact and there have been no substantiated reports of trouble at the Time Agency, in case you were concerned. Everyone is in custody as of 10am this morning. Everything else is in the works as we discussed; hope you’re getting some rest.”

No nudge about if or when Michael was going to text her, even though the STAR Committee had to be breathing down her neck;  _ she’s a class act. _

He heard the sound of Michael coming back up the ladder from the bunker, something about his movements slow, thoughtful. Alex turned, watching him close the hatch in the bottom of the closet, eyes on the floor as he walked towards Alex.

“Everything ok?”

Michael nodded, coming to sit on the couch; Alex pulled his legs back but Michael caught them, sitting close so Alex’s knees were over his lap.

“Mom got the suggestion together really quickly,” he said, frowning a little, fingers tracing across the fine bones of Alex’s ankles, almost meditatively.

“Yeah?” Alex asked and Michael rose to meet his.

“So, you know how we’re all Time Aware? All Antarans?”

Alex nodded. 

“And the Time Chamber, it was our tech, it was with us in the crash? The first thing the survivors at Caulfield and the other prisons you had closed did was build it?”

“That’s part of the history we were taught as Time Agents; I'm glad it's true.”

Michael kept going: “And they’re the ones who set-up all the restrictions -- only traveling on your own timeline, only going places for 24 hours -- never more and never less. Programming in the potential for a connection like ours.” Michael tipped him a smile. “Though nobody but my people knew about that last one.”

“God knows what the Time Agency would have done with that information, so I for one am glad it was a secret.”

Michael continued: “So, a lot of those limitations have to do with the stresses of putting a human body, that didn’t evolve to perceive avulsions in time or travel through it, through the intense experience that is the timestream.” He took a breath. “When we travel in time, or, when we  _ used _ to, in the first decade when we were building all of the foundational tech for the Time Agency, we could use it intuitively, without all of the training that Time Agents go through. Because it's tied to our biology, our species. For us, we can travel to any place that any Time Agent or Time Aware person has ever been, and stay for any amount of time.”

He gave that a moment to sink in, waiting for Alex to get it.

Then he did: “So,” he said, voice oddly calm as his emotions roiled inside of him. He took a breath, focusing on the feeling of Michael through their bond, of Michael’s hands on his foot. “So, if my family had allied with the Antarans, partnered with them from the beginning, everything he put me through -- every war zone, every missed minute with my mother, every beating and trick and trap and warping deprivation -- all of that would never have needed to happen. There would be  _ no need _ for someone to have a childhood like mine, because an Antaran could travel to any time, any place and stay for any amount of time.” 

He took a deliberate breath; the part of him that had adapted to learning about the profound injustices his mother had spent her life combatting, that knew how to take in information about war and torture and genocide and thresh from it what he could act on, that part of him was working hard in that moment. 

His voice sounded calm as he said: “So, if we work with Antarans in the future, the agency researchers would need to develop a whole new map of access, mapping the experiences of any Time Aware person. But then, say if a Time Aware person lived their whole lives in a town in Afghanistan in the middle of the 20th century, then an Antaran Time Agent could go back to 1979 and save the US Ambassador from being killed in Kabul on Valentines Day. They would just travel to that person’s village a few days before, catch a ride to the capital, and protect the ambassador.” 

Alex covered his face, taking a breath as Michael’s fingers continued to map his ankle. “That would change everything about how the Time Agency operates.  _ Everything _ .”

“And that’s not all of it,” Michael said, voice careful. “You know how you always had to have me be 6 feet back?”

“To keep you -- or any part of you -- from getting sucked into the timestream.” It was covered on the first day of Alex’s training with a particularly horrifying video of a goat placed too close to an opening timestream. Time Agency research had found that it tended to pull living things in, but not structures or other inanimate objects. It was one of those quirks Alex had learned to accept. “It’s why, if I’d taken my toddler self home in 1992, I would have had to hold him tight and keep him close to me, since the timestream can be finicky about bringing back two beings when only one was sent.”

“Both are intentional restrictions, to keep the Time Agency from sending entire armies back into the past, to make it more likely the Time Agency would use the technology to shorten or end wars, rather than start them.”

“That -- that is really smart.” Alex said. “And a really accurate understanding of how this technology could have been used.”

Michael smiled: “I know; my people are pretty brilliant. But it's another artificial barrier. For Antarans, if we choose to, we can send as many people or things as we can fit in the time chamber.”

“Useful,” Alex said, “though I still might not let that be widely known.”

“Agreed.” Michael said, looking serious. “All of which is to say: I want to take the Time Agency Director job, so I can restructure the Agency, make sure no one ever has to go through what you did, ever again.” Alex’s heart panged with the controlled intensity in Michael’s voice and he reached out, holding onto his hand. Michael gripped him back: “It will also let me give Antarans control again over the technology we invented, undo some of the sins of Caulfield-that-was.”

“I can text Clara right now,” Alex said, opening his phone. Then he paused, looking up at Michael with as much of an ingenue look as he could pull off, before pulling up a blank contact and handing it over. “But first, can I get your number?”

Michael stared at him for a moment, then down at the phone; then at Alex again. Then he raised Alex’s hand to his mouth, kissing just over the mark on his wrist, muttering: “I can’t believe I never gave you my number; it’s been the same since I was 15 in Pittsburgh.”

He started typing it in, starting with a 412 and then finishing the number. Then gave Alex a teasing look: “I’ll  _ even _ give you my email,” and Alex chuckled, digging his heel into his thigh a little bit in punishment.

Then he handed the phone back to Alex and Alex forwarded his contact to Clara, with a note: “He’s open to talking about it; probably ping him tomorrow.”

“We’ll need to get your phone from the Time Agency for her to be able to talk to you,” Alex said.

“Yeah, that gets to the other thing. She has an answer for how they want to dispose of the body.”

Alex readied himself: “What did they decide on?”

“They want it immolated by the 1947 crash. They gave me the exact location I would need to place it at Foster’s Ranch so it would be burnt to atoms, no bits or pieces to contaminate that or any timeline.”

“It makes sense then, why you told me about how time travel works for Antarans, though I would have loved to know just to know. Without that, you could have traveled to the moment of the crash, but not just before it. Because you were there, right? You and Max and Isobel, Jared and Marie, you were on the ship that crashed?” Michale nodded, expression tight. Alex nudged him gently, trying to lighten the moment. “So, technically, you’re the much older man. I guess there was always going to be something of time travel in our story, no matter how we met.”

Michael huffed a laugh. “That sounds about right. I’m 81, I think. It’s hard to tell. But I don’t think they’ll give me the senior discount at Crashdown, no matter what I tell Arturo.” He grew a little more serious. “I was thinking -- actually, Mom suggested -- not just that I take the body, but that  _ we  _ take it.” He spoke quickly, trying to get the rest of the pitch out: “You wouldn’t have to see or touch it; we need to wipe all the recordings of between midnight and 1am last night on the Time Agency surveillance system anyway, so we would both need to be there. I thought we could stuff him in one of those go box laundry carts, take the whole thing with us.” He paused, voice quiet: “We’d get to be there, to see the crash, the thing that started all of this. And then we could come home.” He took a breath, letting a smile rise on his face: “So, love, want to time travel with me? One last mission? ”

Alex didn’t have to think, didn’t have to wait for an answer: “I would love to.” He took a breath. “Could -- I know you’re probably tired, but could we do it tonight? Get my things from Kyles, get yours stuff from the Time Agency, wipe the files, dispose of the Colonel, and come home? I,” he shook his head a little. “If I can help it, I don’t want to see another dawn where any part of him is in the world.”

“We can do that, love. Absolutely.”

\--

They finished their lunch and cleaned up, Alex putting his prosthetic back on and very much looking forward to picking-up his spare from Kyle’s place. 

Riding in Michael’s truck was an experience -- he’d kept all of the original parts, lovingly restoring it one summer with Jared and Jared’s friend Walt Sanders who ran a junkyard and auto repair business in Roswell. Unlike Alex’s bike, every pothole wasn’t an opportunity for a flying lesson; unlike Alex’s bike, it took 10 minutes to find a spot large enough to park it in Kyle’s neighborhood.

Once they were inside Kyle’s flat, Alex took time to show Michael around, showing him the pot he’d scrubbed out from his first attempt at maqluba, and the cutting board he’d maimed the first time he’d tried chopping veggies. He showed him the special place he’d been keeping the silver metal ball. They nearly got thrown entirely off course when Alex started modeling the outfits he’d picked-up with Rosa at Goodwill for his future dates with Michael; but after a few minutes of making out against the hallway wall, they got back on track.

They took turns carrying loads by hand, since there were no protective walls around the quadplex against prying eyes, packing Alex’s books and his laptop, his chargers, his clothes, his spare prosthetic and sleeves. The last thing they carried down was the olive seedling, standing tall and proud with seven tiny leaves to its name. Michael cradled it in his arms as Alex carefully locked the front door and slipped the key into his pocket. Then they walked down the steps together, Alex getting into the passenger seat and carefully tucking the olive between his knees.

As they headed towards the Time Agency, Alex put his hand on Michael’s arm: “When you were working there, were you ever issued an ID?”

Michael nodded: “It was the funniest thing -- they kept me locked up, wouldn’t let me leave that fucking dungeon of an R&D lab. But after like 3 days, Flint comes down, escorts me to this bright, shiny office to get my picture taken, get issued an official employee ID number. They printed up a badge and everything. He said something about the laundry manager refusing to process anyone’s laundry that wasn’t in the system.”

And Alex choked, just imaging Ms Shapiro grinding Flint down, wielding what power she had to get freedom to someone who needed it, who needed help learning to fly.

“I don’t know if the future Director of the Time Agency is taking scheduling suggestions from his sister Institute’s future Director,” Alex said with a smile, “but I suggest the first meeting you take as Interim Director is with Patrice Shapiro, Head of Laundry Services for the Time Agency.”

Michael blinked: “The woman who sang at Sara’s funeral? I -- I didn’t even realize, but that  _ was _ her, last night, with you in the laundry basket.” He put his hand to his forehead. “I’m going to blame the gun and the trauma, I usually have a better eye for faces than that.”

“She will 100% forgive you for not recognizing her, given the circumstances.” Alex said. “And she’s always going to treat you like you’re the dumbest person in the room, and I think she has some really important ideas about what needs to change at the Time Agency on an operational level.”

“Sounds like a great plan.” 

They were coming up to the security kiosk, its shadow long in the late afternoon light. Michael slowed for the MP who was staffing the booth.

Alex held out his ID and Michael smiled, spreading his hands: “I can give you my employee number -- I’m actually here to get my badge. There was a lot of chaos last night and I didn’t quite get it before getting out of here.”

The man glanced at Alex’s and then up at Michael. “I heard a little bit about it, but all the guys who were working last night are at Kirtland awaiting trial, so I’m keeping my nose out of it. I’m sure we’ll all know more tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I’m the only one out here today until they send replacements, so, don’t get in any trouble in there.”

He handed Alex’s badge back, took Michael’s employee number, and waved them through.

They parked near Alex’s usual spot and took the stairs down to R&D, Alex feeling his chest tighten with every step down.

Michael carefully bumped his shoulder, face looking a little wan, but then he squared up and pushed through the fire doors at the bottom of the stairs, marching in a straight line to R&D. Alex kept at his side, eyes on the cameras and corners. The doors were unguarded, just like the Airman at the gate had promised. Michael gestured and unlocked. Then he turned and put his hand on Alex’s chest.

“Wait here for me, love? I’ll be right out.”

“I,” and Alex forced himself to take a breath, though his body was so tight he could barely absorb the oxygen, “I can help. You don’t have to do it alone.”

Michael leaned in, bracing his forehead against Alex’s. “I’ve got you, Alex. I’ll be out in a minute.”

He edged through the door, clicking in closed behind him. Alex leaned against the wall, counting the seconds and trying to avoid thinking about the smell of death he could image filling the room, getting locked into Michael’s beautiful curls. He tried to hold onto himself, but it was only when Michael pushed open the door, pulling the laundry cart behind him, that Alex could breathe again. 

He was carrying a paper grocery bag, which he handed to Alex. He glanced inside: there were a few changes of clothes, a pair of sneakers, some flip flops like for a gym shower, a Time Agency badge with a truly ghastly photo of Michael on it, a cell phone, and a copy of Mary Oliver’s  _ Dream Work _ .

Alex picked it up: “Did Kyle give you this?”

“Rosa, actually, through Kyle.” Michael said as he began to push the cart towards the elevator. Alex suspected he was using a bit of his powers to keep whatever smells the Colonel’s body was producing out of their noses, because all he could smell was fresh laundry. “The reader selection in the R&D lab was a little spare; but I could re-read her stuff a million times." They reached the elevator, doors opening immediately; Alex punched in the ground floor, where they could wipe the security files and then take the Colonel to the Time Chamber. Alex’s stomach jerked as the elevator began to rise and Michael recited: “ _ ‘You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’” _

Alex’s body was still as tense as he could be with his monster’s corpse bundled into a go box beside him, but there was some part of him, some living, burning piece of him, that had unfurled at those words, tried to remember them for later. “I’ve never read her; another thing we can explore together.”

“I’d love that. She’s prolific; we’ll be reading a lot of her work together for the first time.”

Alex would have smiled, if he knew how to in that moment. “I look forward to it.”

Once they got to the security office, the process for erasing the relevant timestamps on the security tapes was relatively simple. Flint had designed the entire security system assuming he could prevent physical access to the security office. With no guards in the building and Michael’s powers, they were inside in seconds.

The permissions needed to access the system were general, the same level Kyle and Michael had. Alex was leaning over the keyboard, getting ready to type his credentials in, to shield Michael and take the fall-out if anyone ever found out what they’d done -- when Michael tapped him on the shoulder, pointing to a sticky note stuck to the monitor.

> **Usr** : Fl!nt   
>  **PW** : ManesMan4Lyfe

“Yikes,” Alex muttered. Then he shook his head and used the login.

He deleted the logs for the night before and for every minute since he and Michael had been caught on the first cameras out on the road, all the way into the R&D lab; even the soft moment in the elevator had been captured and recorded. Then he destroyed the back-ups. Finally, he reset every computer in the building to central time. He was hoping in the confusion of everyone resetting every desktop hardwired into the building, the missing hour would get buried.

It was a sloppy fix and he knew it; if he had a team of researchers, he could have designed a much slicker solution. 

But as soon as he was done, Michael made things much simpler:  “Do you think there’s a value in there being so many cameras, microphones, bugs, spy systems throughout the building? Is there a good reason to treat people this way?”

Alex shook his head: “No. No way. It was about control and the Colonel’s paranoia. All it did was make people feel unsafe, like they couldn’t trust their coworkers.”

“Knowing my showers were being recorded was enough of a reason for me to hate that system, but that’s a good point too.” Michael dropped to his knees, crawling to where the wall of monitors and the desktop’s tower drew their feeds from.

“Last chance to speak on behalf of the panopticon,” he said, teasing words masking a deep disgust.

Alex had an idea of what he was planning: “Let it burn.” He said, sitting to watch Michael work.

Michael closed his eyes, taking a long, slow breath. Then his hand began to glow. For a slip of a second, Alex could have sworn he saw the nest of data cables glow an answering red; but then they were dark, the acrid smell of melting metal and plastic tubing reaching his nose.

“Oops,” Michael said. “Looks like every single camera and microphone in the building just got fried. I doubt the new Interim Director will have time, budget, or operational time to replace them. Oh no.”

As he crawled out from under the table, Alex pulled himself up using the desk and offered him his hand. Michael took it, smiling, letting Alex help him to standing.

“Ready to finish this?” He asked, not letting go of Alex’s palm, fingers tight on his.

“Absolutely, love.”

And then Alex leaned in and kissed him, once, full and square, as the smell of the end of the Manes rule over the Time Agency rose around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated to include -- I got a few good questions about process and this fic and I wanted to link to my answers in case folks are curious:
> 
> https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/628936019149029376/5-do-you-know-how-your-story-ends-before-you
> 
> https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/628842761930571776/my-love-is-a-taker-2-what-scene-did-you-first
> 
> https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/628907770979254272/writing-technique-questions-2-3


	52. My love is a life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is it! The end! Three and a half months, the longest thing I've ever written.
> 
> I am so intensely grateful to all of the wonderful people of the 18+ Roswell Discord Server and to every single person here who has commented, read, left kudos, rec-ed, or otherwise enjoyed this story.
> 
> Thank you all so, so, so very much. This was an exquisite ride and I loved spending it with all of you.

Setting up the time chamber for their jump to 1947 took a little longer than usual with only two people to work the controls, but Michael was fluid in the room, having had to study every aspect of the process during his time in R&D. Alex suspected the Antarans had something like this, a time chamber of their own, back in Libya that Michael had had access to at some point; but Alex was learning to enjoy the idea that he could learn about Michael’s life in bit by bit, not needing to crush every update into a 1000 seconds. When Michael wanted to tell him, he would; or he’d see for himself when he visited.

When the controls were all ready, Alex checked the paper bag of clothes: there would be enough for both of them to change into once they got back and Michael could use his powers to operate the decontamination protocol from inside the time chamber. He made sure the crutches Kyle kept for him were in easy reach, just at the bottom of the ramp.

Then, together, they pushed the laundry basked and its evil load up the sloping ramp. 

“It feels good to help, to do this together,” Alex murmured as Michael flicked the switch that sealed them into the chamber. “Ma salama, I'm glad you handled the worst of it, but carrying some of his weight -- I think it will help feel like I am laying him down for good, when we get there.”

Michael wrapped his arm around Alex’s waist, Alex leaning into him. “I’m glad, love. I’m really fucking glad.” He took a breath of the chilly air and sniffed with derision. “There’s literally no reason they have to keep this thing this cold. First technical request is going to be heaters for this thing. Jesus.”

Alex huffed a laugh, tucking himself a little more tightly against Michael, eyes drifting down to the laundry basket like he was being pulled by a terrible magnetism.

Michael’s voice was gentle when he asked: “You ready, love?”

Alex slipped his fingers into Michael’s back pocket, his body’s heat dispelling the chill in the air. Then he nodded: “Let’s go.”

The timestream opened before them, but instead of choking or being yanked to the ground, with Michael at his side it felt -- it felt like flying. 

Alex’s body felt weightless; like he rocketing down from the top of the New Mexico Rattler; like he’d just parachuted into a cool, green valley. And rather than forced out of his body, he could still feel every part of himself, plus Michael beside him. He glanced at the timestream as it flew by, showing Michael’s life: just snatches of his home planet, a long, slow minute sleeping inside a pod, then school fairs and carnival rides, first dances and robotics competitions, a smear of desert and a flash of diplomas. Alex caught his own face, a few times, saw himself through Michael’s eyes: first, a protector; then, a friend; then, a confidant; then, a prospect; finally, a partner.

The timestream eased around them, dissolving into the quiet night in the New Mexico desert; no light shone from in their time devices, nothing to distinguish them from any other shadows or ghosts haunting the sagebrush. Michael looked around, got his bearings, and said: “Just over here -- it crashed into this mesa. If we put it up in the arroyo at its base, it’ll be atomized on impact.”

He took Alex’s hand and raised his other, floating the bin it over the sagebrush and onto the hard stones of the arroyo. The last Alex saw of Jesse Manes’s corpse, it was tucked up and anonymous as garbage in a battered old laundry bin.

Once it was settled, Michael tugged Alex’s hand.

“We’ve got about 5 minutes, according to Mom’s records. We should get out of the crashzone.”

Just like escaping from a riptide, they perpendicularly to the path Michael said the crash would take, finding themselves climbing-up a low hill. Together, they sat on the gravely earth, creosote and sage and desert flowers blooming in the night all around them, calling out to the nighttime pollinators.

Michael’s eyes were fixed on the sky, Alex’s arm around him. Michael gasped when one small light twinkled at them. Then he started taking big, gulping breaths as it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, the lights getting brighter and brighter and brighter until it was obviously a ship, and obviously in distress.

The ship was shaking itself apart, pieces falling and flying from all sides. Alex could imagine the only reason it made it out of orbit was a hundred mature Anatarans with decades of experience controlling their TK and an absolute commitment to saving their children had held it together through sheer willpower.

In the final seconds before the crash, Michael shaking against him, Alex thought of Nora Truman; of Michael and Isobel and Max, Jared and Marie, all tucked-up in those pods. Of the people who loved them, who would in the days and weeks in this timeline, die for them, sacrifice decades of their lives for them -- and still, through that sheer, indomitable willpower, program their captors’ tools to ensure their children’s ultimate survival, to assure their final freedom.

As Alex held Michael, the spaceship crashed; the desert lit-up with purple-orange-blue flames that spread and then fell. A parachute, a last-ditch effort to save lives, billowed over the remains.

Alex felt his breath catch; he tried to swallow, tried not to make Michael need to care for him in this moment. But, under the wind, he heard Michael make the same hitching, heartbreaking sound -- and then Michael was crying, sobbing into his shoulder, pulling Alex closer to him, tears running down both of their faces.

Alex and Michael watched as figures began to move, heaving themselves out of the wreckage, fighting to free others. Exhausted, injured, and still striving, still trying to preserve life.

(Alex would realize later he hadn’t even noticed when the Colonel’s body had been burned to nothing.)

Then he saw a flash of headlights in the distance; that would be history, his family, coming to this site, this place of burial and hope, to bring decades of pain into these people’s lives. It would claw at something inside of him to see it, to see it happen, to see Nora Truman at the end of his ancestor’s pistol; but it was Michael’s history they were here for, and if Michael wanted to see it, they would.

He didn’t.

His voice was quiet, choked, when he said: “You ready to head home, love? I don’t need to see the fall-out. I’ve already seen it through my mother’s eyes and I hate the ending.”

“Sure, love,” Alex said, looking down at the 1940s-era trucks careening down the county road to Foster’s Ranch. “Want to go over the ridge, so they won’t see the timestream open?”

Michael nodded and stood, giving Alex his hand. Alex took it, immediately wrapping his arms around Michael’s waist and holding him tightly. After a long, hitching breath, he let go, and together they stepped carefully down the ridge, and as soon as they were out of sight, Michael pressed his hand to his own time device, and the timestream blossomed around them. 

This time, Alex didn’t watch the timestream, didn’t look for himself or anyone else he knew. Instead, he turned to Michael, one arm holding him close, holding him up. The other traced fingertips over his tear-tracked cheeks. His breathing was hard, eyes closed as he tried to fight it; his face a mask of grief for what he'd seen. 

“Love,” Alex said, and Michael swayed towards him, the blue light flowing over his features, “love, come here. I’ve got you, love. I’ve got you.”

Michael sagged against him and Alex wrapped his arms around him, holding him close as he breathed.

Once Alex felt his feet solid on the grate of the time chamber floor, he pulled away a little. 

“We can go home, as soon as we do the decontamination.” Michael nodded, looking entirely worn out. Alex bit his lip. “We need to put our clothes in the go box, then we can run the gas, filter it out, put on your extra clothes, and go home.”

Michael blinked at him, eyes bleary, understanding not coming. Alex slowed down. “Love, is it ok if I undress you, so we can get out of here?”

Michael nodded: “Thanks, love.” Alex took a careful step back, turning Michael with his just fingertips so he was facing him. Slowly, watching to make sure it was alright, Alex pulled his shirt up and over Michael's head, then he took off his own, putting both in the go box. He unbuckled Michael’s belt, laying it carefully in the bin so the big buckle would remain unscratched. 

“Is it ok if I take your pants? Then I’ll need to sit, to get my prosthetic off.”

“Ok,” Michael said, folding his arms across his chest to ward off the chill.

Alex knelt, untying his boots and slipping them off, Michael placing a light hand on his shoulder to balance. Once he was barefoot, Alex carefully unbuttoned his jeans, slipping them and his briefs down off his legs. Michael stepped out of them, grabbing a boot to help toss into the go box. Then he sat beside Alex, bare ass on the floor and not seeming to care, leaning heavily against his side as Alex made quick work of his own shoes, pants, prosthetic and sleeve.

Then they were naked, sitting together in the low light of the lab.

“The gas needs to run for about 10 seconds; you’ll need to hold your breath and also turn it back off,” Alex said, voice hushed. 

“I can think of a better way not to breathe,” Michael murmured, sounding a bit more himself. Then he gestured and the gas began to fill the chamber as he laid his hands on Alex’s cheeks and kissed him, mouth moving against his like Alex was the one thing holding him to this world, this moment in time. Alex melted into him, digging his fingers into his curls, grounding them both. After 10 seconds, the gas filtered back out and the chamber opened, the ramp lowering smoothly. Alex’s crutches floated towards them and Michael gave him a bracing arm to get up.

He stood and brushed another tender kiss across Alex’s mouth, seeking reassurance and contact, both of which Alex freely gave, holding open his side of the bond to give any piece of stability or peace he could.

Into the quiet space between them, Michael murmured: “Let’s go home, love.”

\--

They’d made a simple meal, sharing in the quiet, letting the reality of the mission wash between, around, and finally out of them. Michael let his mother know it was done, and charged his phone enough to reply to Clara Power’s texts and schedule a time to talk. They put the olive tree in the sink with a fresh serving of water. 

Then they locked their front door, said goodbye to the stars, and remade the bed, the Omani saddle blanket stretched on top. They brushed their teeth, bumping sleepily against each other as they leaned to share a sink. And then they put each other to bed. Michael fell into an exhausted sleep right away, but Alex was up for a few more minutes, tracing his eyes across the shadowed outlines of the gifts on the shelf above the bed, the evidence of their history, told through things, from all the places he wanted to show Michael, all the times he wanted to share with him.

Alex fell asleep dreaming of the future, lulled into peace by the sounds of Michael’s breaths under his cheek.

\--

They managed to get to Libya in their first month together for a quick trip, catching lunch with Mena in Beirut on a layover and spending a good few days of quality time with Nora and Isobel before heading home.

But their first long break together came about six months later. Alex had been quickly approved as the new Director of the Habemus Tempus Institute; his first act had been renaming it to the Justitia in Magis Mundo Institute; he liked to think Adla Ibrahim would approve. Michael had likewise sailed through the confirmation hearings, particularly since Charlie Cameron had found nothing to disprove her initial suspicion that Colonel Manes had fled the country. Flint and his security detail were serving long sentences in Ft Leavenworth for their role in Michael’s imprisonment.

Alex and Michael had arranged it so they shared the same two week break -- actually, everyone in their sister agencies had the time off, either for vacation or paid study or backstopping, if they needed the hours. Fixing the agency and the institute’s work-life balance had done wonders for morale, as had the new types of missions and influx of excited, powerful Antarans to their staffs. 

For their break, Alex and Michael flew to Libya again, with a layover in Erbil, starting the trip with a few days with family, Alex getting to practice his Antaran language skills and try to recruit more future Time Agents, Michael setting off on long shopping trips with Isobel as she prepared for her and Rosa’s summer wedding. H returned from each of these trips very much ready to hideout in a lab with Alex, or in the home in the family compound Nora had set aside for them to use whenever they were in-country, or anywhere his sister wasn't.

After a few days of that, they’d set off together to Wow-A-Namous. The trip was long, but after decades of investment, even the rural roads of Libya were good.

Alex hung his arm out the window of their Jeep as he took his turn driving the last leg before they reached the volcano. The night desert wind flew across his fingertips, Michael’s feet were in his lap as he took a long nap, and a mashup of Saharan SIM card music was on the radio.

Alex thought about the past six months: he’d kept up his therapy appointments, gotten better at understanding his own mind and taking care of himself. He or Michael still used 'ma salama' about once a week, but it was an old, comfortable habit now. Just one more communication tool in their toolbox. He had lunch with Kyle and Rosa a few times a week; he saw Liz and Max most Friday nights for their alien movie night. 

He hadn’t been on a mission since he’d come back from Roswell in 1947 with Michael, and he hadn’t found himself missing it. In the past six months, he’d traveled to a dozen countries with Michael by his side, most of which Alex had never been to before, to kickstart the new application process for his Institute. He’d heard languages, tasted foods, and built relationships he never would have had a chance to as a Time Agent. Now, he spent his days thinking about the future, about making a more just world; and his nights with Michael, learning to fill their home with food and friends and love and laughter. And sex; a _lot_ of sex.

Alex saw the rising peaks of the caldera outlined against the starry sky and jiggled Michael’s ankle in his lap; he slept on. They spent most of their time without marks, wanting to learn to communicate without the aid of a psychic bond. But their first night here, Michael had given Alex one across his wrist, he was pretty sure so he could share all of his sarcastic feelings about Isobel’s overblown nuptials without speaking them aloud where her sisterly ears could hear.

Alex took a breath and send a gentle nudge down their bond; Michael stretched, body long and soft in the moonlight.

“We’re nearly there, love,” Alex murmured.

Michael yawned and smiled, eyes bright and gentle as he took in the horizon of first place they’d made love.

“I’ll set-up the tent if you unload the gear?”

“Works for me,”

They hadn’t had a chance to come back to Libya in the past 6 months, but they had taken every weekend they could to explore the Southwest together. Hiking on the reservation, camping in the mountains, buying their own rugs, even a long, long drive to the Gulf Coast so Alex could begin to teach Michael to SCUBA dive.

It was the happiest Alex had ever been in his entire life and it seemed like every day got a little bit better.

Michael set-up their tent far from the mosquito clouds of the lakes, out on the dry, flat valley between two great, curving dunes. He left the rainfly off so they could see the stars, tucking it into their packs as Alex carried out the water, laid out their queen-sized sleeping bag, and put together their simple night’s meal. 

This too, was a rhythm they had found: eating together, sleeping together, talking and joking and thinking and crying and celebrating together. A shared joy and a shared life made greater by each other’s presence in it.

Tonight, they lay side by side, Alex’s head pillowed on Michael’s biceps, taking turns tracing the stars as the constellations rose and set in the sand dunes. When the moon first topped the volcanic peak behind their heads, Alex murmured:

“I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have you in my life. That we survived and get to be together.”

Michael pressed a kiss into his hair, hitching his leg over Alex’s for the extra contact and because, in the last six months they’d learned they both liked the feeling of the other’s weight on them. His voice was low and full of love: “I can’t believe I get to have a future with you, that we just get to keep trying to make each other happy for as long as we live.”

Alex wriggled a little closer, fingers finding Michael's and gripping him tight: “I love that we get to build a future together.” He turned, kissing his soft mouth. “And I love you.”

“I love you too.”

As the desert moon looked on, made brighter by the darkness around her, the two men wrapped each other in their arms and drifted together into a peaceful sleep, together.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are life! Thank you again to all of the lovely folks who gave encouragement while I was writing this.
> 
> Also, come hangout with me on tumblr! jocarthage.tumblr.com


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